


Personal Business

by navi_senpai, TheBlubberingFangirlIsHere



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe- Law Firm, Angst, F/F, Fluff, Fluffy, James I'm so sorry, James is a fluffy sad smol bean, Jamilton wink wink, Jeffmadds, Law Firm AU, M/M, Modern AU, Navi-Senpai, Poor Thomas, Shut The Fuck Up Thomas, Slutty Alex, Some sexy times, Thomas also has a depressing background sooooo, Thomas is like a pubescent girl, We love, angsty, buisness au, but hate you, don't be such a bitch, i want him to be happy, jeffmads - Freeform, like seriously, slight revenge au, smol depressed James, smol salty James
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-09-22 19:30:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 37
Words: 72,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9622334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navi_senpai/pseuds/navi_senpai, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBlubberingFangirlIsHere/pseuds/TheBlubberingFangirlIsHere
Summary: James starts his new job at a law firm.





	1. Prologue

Personal Business

 

Chapter 1

Prologue

 

James walked through the familiar hallways of his high school. The mid afternoon sun fled through the windows as he walked to the library. He reached the door, opening it the musk of old books fled his senses. He walked to the table near the back of the library and sets his things down. He walked back to the history section, looking at the book’s spines as he went. He knew exactly what he was looking for: History of Politics.

As he rounded the corner he heard the familiar sound of his boyfriend’s voice. It was soft but harsh. He knew this part of the library was more ‘quiet’ so he wondered why his voice would have such a tone. He stood at the end of the bookshelf listening to the desperate gasps. James listens to the sounds for a couple of seconds, trying to figure out what could be happening. James turned the corner, what he saw made his heart sink to his stomach. His heartbeats faster, the sound pounding in his ears. A sudden rush of sickness fled through his body.

James gazed in horror as his beloved, Thomas, was pushing a figure against a wall. The person's head was thrown back gasping as Thomas left love bites along their collarbone. James drops his book, the sound alarming Thomas. His head whipped around as he realized who was there.

“James,” Thomas gasped. He turns, leaving the person standing in disbelief. James stood, frozen in shock. Thomas walked over and placed his hands on James’s shoulders. All James could hear was his heart beat. _Bump-bump_ . James’s body moved faster than his brain and his hand shot up, striking Thomas across the face. _Bump- bump._ Thomas’s hand went to where James had hit him, a look of shock painting his face. _Bump-bump._ James turned, trying not to make it a bigger scene than it already was.

James was in autopilot and grabbed his bag, storming out of the library. He ran back to his house, furious. His mother greeted him at the door, but he ignored her and went straight to his room. He stomped down the stairs to the basement. He closed the door, going straight to his corkboard ripping off all of pictures of him and Thomas, taking love notes Thomas had shoved in his locker every day for the past two months and week they had been dating. He threw them all in the trash, tying up the garbage bag not wanting to see them. He walked back downstairs and threw the bag containing the memories out. He stormed back down the stairs and slammed the door.

He slammed his back against the door, the realization hit him like a train. Tears started welling in his stinging eyes. Tears flooded his eyes, he sat in his room sobbing on the floor. His mind was blank. He wasn’t sure what he’d do. Would he talk to Thomas the next day? Would he be able to look him in the eyes? Would he know what to say? Thomas was everything to him, he helped him through midnight anxiety attacks, he came and visited him no matter how sick he was. Why did Thomas have to make him fall in love so quickly? His heart felt like it was fracturing into little pieces.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled his phone out and stared at the screen. Thomas was trying to call him. James clicked the hang up button. His screen went back to the normal screen saver.

(6) Missed Calls; Thomas

James threw his phone across the room, not wanting any memory of Thomas. The phone slide across the floor. He pulled his legs to his chest and laid his head on his knees. Another buzz came from across the room, he looked up to his phone. _Thomas_ lit up on the screen. James scoffed, another hot tear ran down his cheek.


	2. Eleven Years Later

Chapter 2

Eleven Years Later. 

 

James stepped out of his car, the warm May air hitting his face. He stood staring at the towering building, the sun gleaming off the panes of glass. James sighs heavily. An strides towards the door, pulling the door open. The foyer was modern with sleek furniture. It smelt of citrus and linen. 

A woman with dark brown hair and warm chocolate colored eyes was sitting at a counter. She wore a black headset typing away on a computer. James walked up to her and she pulled her eyes away from the computer. She greeted him with welcoming eyes and a warm smile with big dimples. 

“You must be Mr. Madison! Welcome, I’m Eliza!” the woman sticks her hand across the counter and shakes it. 

“No, no, call me James,” he smiles brightly. 

“Sorry I’m used to calling people by their last names,” Eliza beamed. James noded.

“Here, I’ll show you to Thomas’s office,” she steps out from behind her counter and motions for him to follow. 

“Thank you!” James follows Eliza down the hallway. 

“So you’re an intern, right?” Eliza turns her head back to him.

“Uhm, uh” James clears his throat, “Actually, I’m an-an assistant.” Eliza’s face flushed with a pink tone.

“Oh-uh- I’m-I’m sorry!” Eliza stumbles. James giggles lightly.

“It’s fine,” James tries to calm Eliza’s embarrassment. Eliza’s face went straight. 

“I want to warn you, Thomas is. Is a little, hm, how do I put this,” Eliza scratched her head. James’s eyebrows furrowed. “Difficult.” His mind starting racing from the possibilities of what  _ difficult _ could mean. He followed her to the elevator.

“What made you want to work here?” She asked pressing the button that read ‘14’. 

“Ever since I was little I’ve wanted to work for a law firm,” James looked over to Eliza as she shuffled into the space.

“How old were you when you realized you wanted to work for law?”

“I was about fifteen,” He shifted his weight to the other foot.

“How did you decide?” Eliza looked over to James. 

“There was this point in my life that I was super depressed and I,” James scoffed and looked up, “didn’t want to keep feeling depressed so I started working on my studies. And look at me now, I’m at one of the nicest law firms in America.”

“That’s great,” the elevator binged and the door opened. They stepped out of the elevator into the open space. Glass lined doors were placed along the clean walls. Eliza started walking towards a door, James in tow. She opened the door to an expensive looking room. There’s a desk directly across the door with a tall man leaning against the desk. He’s looking at some papers, flipping through them occasionally. 

He looks up to Eliza and James. His hair is big and pouffy and flies in every direction. His eyes are brown with a constant look that makes you feel like you’re inferior. He’s wear black pants and shirt with a burgundy jacket. The first few buttons are unbuttoned and are showing his chest. Thomas smirks at them. 

“Hey, you must be James,” Thomas crosses his arms. His voice is nasally and has that “better-than-you” sound to it. 

“I am, you’re Thomas, correct?” James sticks his hand out to Thomas.

“Mr. Jefferson,” Thomas’s face falls into a frown.

“Huh?,” James’s arm went slack. Thomas raised an eyebrow at James.

“I’m Mr. Jefferson to you,” Thomas stands up and starts to walk. “Follow me,” Thomas pushes past the two of them. James and Eliza look to each other. They start to walk down the hall. Thomas looks back at the two of them from the corner of his eye.

“Go back to the first floor, counter girl,” 

“Um, yes sir.” she complies begrudgingly and went over to the elevator, hopping in and pushing the button. She looked back up and they made eye contact, Eliza waved.    

“So, James, are you ready for the Thunderdome?” Thomas looks over his shoulder to James.  _ Thunderdome? _ James thinks.  _ How scary can this be? What did I get myself into? _

“Uhm? Yes?”James says like a question. Thomas scoffs in response. 

“THOMAS!” a scream comes from the other side of the hallway. A look of fright and regret flooded Thomas’s face. James had a nagging feeling of deja vu flow over him. James and Thomas turned around to the person yelling. It was a tall woman in a tight light pink dress with a black jacket thrown over. Her hair was up in a complicated bun at the top of her head. She looked like she was fuming, and a short man followed quickly behind her. His hair was long and is flowed behind him. He was wearing a green jacket and black pants. And he was giving a suggestive look to Thomas.

“That’s Angelica Schuyler, the big dog around here. She’s  _ my _ boss,” Thomas whispered, still frozen in place. 

“Yes Angelica?” Thomas winces as she approaches him. 

“Congratulations,” she hisses, “You really fucked up that meeting!” She notices James standing in utter fear and her expression quickly turns happy and inviting.

“Hello! You must be James Madison,” Angelica shoves her hand out to James. He takes her hand and she shakes it firmly.

“Yes! You must be Mrs. Schuyler!” James smiles warmly. 

“No, no. Mrs. Schuyler is my mother. Call me Angelica,” She jokes. They both chuckle at the joke.

“Alright,” He responds quietly. James noticed the conversation happening between Mr. Jefferson and the shorter man. 

“Why hello, Thomas. How are you, I haven’t seen you in a  _ long _ time. We must meet up sometime, how about,  _ soon _ .” 

“Alex! Shut up. Now.” Thomas shot him a look. Angelica expressed her happiness for James being on the team. He wasn’t listening to her speech, it was probably the speech she’s said to every employee that has walked through the door. Even Thomas and her small assistant.

“I can speak French between your legs.” The unknown one flirted, raising his eyebrow suggestively. James freezes and pretends to listen to Angelica.  _ What the hell did he just say? _ James thought. Angelica seemed to have noticed this and her eyes flickered up at them for a split second.

“All I can think is you in between my legs, screaming ‘Bonjour, Monsieur Penis’ at my dick,” Jefferson raised his eyebrow at him skeptically.

Angelica sighs and leans to look at the men behind James. “Thomas, Alexander, keep your sex life out of my law firm or I will castrate both of you in the front lobby.”    

“Hey, everyone likes a little pain,” Alex shrugs at Angelica’s threat.

“I’m fucking done,” Thomas puffs as he walks away. Alex is snickering at Thomas.

“If you weren’t so smart you wouldn’t be here,” Angelica scolds and glares at Alex.

“James, let’s go,” Thomas calls, annoyed. James quickly catches up almost out of breath. Thomas briefed him over the rules and regulations of the workplace. He was given a stack of papers to organize by date and to return to him by lunch. Incidentally the stack of papers he was handed had a sticky note on top of it that read:  _ For Thomas _ . But James luckily sorted them out before lunch with thirty minutes to spare. He grabs his bag and walks to the elevator and hits the button for the first floor. He gets there and walks up to Eliza sitting at her desk fiddling with one of her pens. She looked up at James as he approached.

“Are you on lunch break too?” James asks throwing up a hand to greet her. Eliza looks up to the clock and gets out of her chair.

“Yeah, I am, I just got off my first shift!” Eliza responds happily. 

“Do you want to go eat in the break room together?” James asked resituating his bag.

“Yeah!” she beams. James watches as Eliza pulls out a small lunch box, it’s a white with pastel blue flowers each connecting to a yellow center. They go up the elevator and walk to the break room. The room was cold and empty with two big tables and a few vending machines lining the wall. With a kitchenette against the back corner. James and Eliza sat at one of the tables, opening their lunches. Eliza had a strawberry smoothie and a caesar salad with grilled chicken. James looks down at his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, sadly.

“So you’ve asked me a lot of questions, can I ask you some?” James asks, looking up from his food.

“Yeah! Definitely!” Eliza cheered. James thought about what’d he’d ask.

“Are you married?” James asks. Eliza smiled to herself and seemed to be blushing.

“I am, actually,” Eliza responds.

“Ah, who’s the lucky guy?” James asks. Eliza looked confused.

“Their name is Maria,” Eliza responded awkwardly. James could feel his face heating up.

“Oh my! I’m sorry! I didn’t know! I can’t believe I just assumed that, I mean,  _ I’m gay _ , I can’t believe I just assumed that!” James blubbered. Eliza chuckled and covered her mouth with the back of her hand. A loud conversation came from the open door and two people stepped in.

“It’s fine, I understand,” Eliza laughed. “Are you dating anyone?”

“No I’m actually not,” James responded evenly.

“James?” that nasally voice came from behind him. He sighed heavily (as did Eliza) and he turned around to find Thomas and Alex walking to the vending machine. “Did you finish that assignment I gave you?” Thomas pushed a few quarters into the vending machine.

“Yeah, I did,” James faked a smile. 

“Great! You know, you really are a hard worker,” Thomas smirked, bending down to grab whatever he got at the vending machine. Alex took this as an “opportunity” and smack Thomas’s butt.

“Don’t touch my ass,” Thomas stood back up and turned to Alex. “You can’t afford this,” Thomas motions to himself. Alex rolls his eyes.

“You know you’re kinky like that,” Alex smirks. Thomas pushes past him to a table.

“Alex we all know you take the back stairs because that's where you like it,” Thomas waves his hand and sits down.

“Okay, that’s enough for me, you?” James whispers to Eliza.

“More than I’ve ever needed,” Eliza whispers back. They both get up and walk out of the break room. 

“Are those two a couple?” James asks when the door shuts. Eliza scoffed.

“Nope, I’m pretty sure they’re just booty calls, but mostly they’re shameless” Eliza sighs. “Believe me, that’s not the worst I’ve seen.” Eliza shakes her head from the memory.

“How much worse could it get?” James laughs in disbelief. Eliza raises her eyebrows and takes a quick breath in.

“You really want to know?” Eliza looked away awkwardly.

“No,” James admitted and they both laughed. 

“Do you want to go eat at my desk?” James asks sticking his thumb in the direction of the small desk right next to Thomas’s office.

“Yeah, do you have much in there?” Eliza asked, following James to his desk.

“No, I really just have the desk and a potted plant,” James laughed smalley.

“Ah,” Eliza smiled, “Are going to bring anything else?”

“Not yet, I will later though,” James explained opening the door for Eliza. They both pull chairs up to James’s desk and start to eat again. James looks up to his lunchbox and notices  _ Eliza Schuyler _ written neatly in the corner. 

“Schuyler?” James asks looking up Eliza, “Are you Angelica’s sister?”

“Yeah, I am,” Eliza smiled up at James.

“I didn’t know you two were siblings,” James raised his eyebrows in surprise. 

“We don’t look alike, at all,” Eliza laughs. Angelica walks over to the two confidently.

“Eliza, I need you,” Angelica calls and starts to walk past the desk. 

“Okay!” Eliza stands up and starts putting her food away. “Bye James, thank you for letting me eat in here with you!” Eliza thanks as she walks with Angelica.

“No problem!” James calls back to her. He continues his sandwich until Jefferson walks over from the break room.

“James, I need you,” he leans in with one hand on James’s desk. He puts away his sandwich and stands up.

“Coming,” James sighs and starts walking towards Thomas.

“Jeez, don’t have to act so cold James,” Thomas chuckles and they start to walk. James nods in response, trying not to prod it anything further. 

“I need you to get me some coffee,” Thomas explained, looking down to James. “You can come back to my office when you have it done.”

“What do you want?” James asks.

“A mocha”

“Wait what? How do you even make that?” James asks. Thomas looks over his shoulder and stops.

“Look it up,” Jefferson turns and walks back towards James. James pulls out his phone and searches “ _ mocha recipe _ ”, James scrolls through a few options and lands on one, reading through the ingredients.

“Steamed milk? How the fuck do you expect me to get that?” Jame looks tiredly up at Thomas. He just shrugs in response.

“You know what, what’s your favorite coffee place?” James sighs, rubbing his eyes.

“Starbucks,” Thomas smiles.

“Why am I not surprised,” James sighs and turns towards the elevator.  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Thomas yells, annoyedly. James smiles and waves as the elevator door shuts. _He’s so troublesome_ , James thinks as the elevator goes down the shaft. The elevator gets to the end of the track and opens at the first floor.

“Hi James?” Eliza looked over the counter to see James walking.

“Hey,” James throws his arm in the air.

“Thomas?” Eliza asks. James laughs and shakes his head.

“You were right about him being difficult,” James laughs as he leaves the building.

\-----

James stretches his arms out as he walks through the door. He puts his things on the coat rack and plops down on his couch. He flips the TV on and pulls his computer up onto his lap. James can’t get the idea of knowing Thomas from somewhere. But he just  _ can’t _ put his finger on it. Maybe he’ll have a wiki page? He is relatively well known in the law agency, and if Eugene from Buzzfeed has a wiki page, Thomas would have one too. James opens his computer and pulls open a tab, he types “ _ Thomas Jefferson Wikipedia _ ” into the search bar. It’s so weird that he’s looking up his boss. But he won’t be able to sleep if he doesn’t figure this out. The google page comes up, the first tab says “ _ Thomas Jefferson - Wikipedia” _ James swallows his anxiety and clicks the link. A page pulls up and James reads the first paragraph.

_ Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1991) is a chief operating officer at Schuyler Law Firm. He is previously known as Thomas Randolph, but his name was changed in 2011. _

James stops reading and looks at the name,  _ Thomas Randolph _ .  _ From high school? _ James thinks.  _ The one that broke my heart? Him? _ James wonders. He can feel his face going red, and a bit of anger rises in his stomach.  _ I used to date my boss? And he fucking cheated on me? _

“Holy shit-”


	3. Paid to Lie

 

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” James yells. He whips out his phone and starts texting Eliza. “ _ You will not believe what I just found!” _ James stares at the picture of Thomas in complete disbelief.  _ What am I going to do?  _ James thinks, pushing his palms into his eyes. Anger and disgust bubble up inside his stomach. The memory of Thomas that day in the library rushes into his head. Then the anger. Then the tears.

“ _ What?” _ Eliza responds quickly. “ _ Apparently I know Thomas…” _ James writes quickly.

“ _ From where?” _ Eliza asks. James scoffs, he has to deal with the person that broke his heart at work? And he has to run stupid errands for him too? Does Thomas even realize James is the James from high school? They were only dating for two months before Thomas did  _ that _ . He probably doesn’t even remember their relationship at all. “ _ Thomas and I used to date…” _ James explains, his finger hovering over the send button. 

“ _ Seriously?”  _ Eliza asks. “ _ And on top of that, he cheated on me _ ” James wrote back. Eliza reads it and doesn’t respond for a minute.

“ _Holy Cow_ ” she finally says. “ _Tomorrow will be a fuuuuun_ _day_ ” James responds sarcastically. 

“ _ To be honest, he seems like a serial cheater _ ” Eliza adds. James chuckles at Eliza’s response, he can remember hearing rumors every once and awhile of Thomas cheating on his boyfriend or girlfriend. “ _ Why would you ever date him?” _ Eliza says a second later.

“ _ He was actually super gushy in high school, in fact he used to shove little love notes into the slots of my locker _ ” James responds. “ _ Can I call you, I need to hear all of this _ ” Eliza asks. “ _ Okay _ ” James answers. And few seconds later Eliza calls him, James slides the phone to answer. 

“Hey,” James answers, pressing his cold phone up to his ear. 

“So tell me about your relationship,” Eliza cheers. James laughs and walks to his bedroom.

“What do you want to know?” James chuckles. Eliza makes a sound like she’s thinking.

“Who asked who out, and how did it happen?” Eliza says. James tries to remember exactly what happened.

“It was me, I do remember that. He was two grades above of me and I was like, love sick or what the fuck ever. I think it was after school,” James runs his fingers through his short hair. “I was super pimply and awkward and I asked if I could talk to him. And of course he said yes, we went outside and I asked him if he would go out with me. He said yes, and we started dating,” James details as he plops down onto his bed.

“What did he look like back then? Was he super pubescent too?” Eliza sounded like she whispering gossip into the phone.

“Somehow it seemed like he skipped puberty all together. He didn’t have his beard, but he still had that huge hair. Ugh, when we were dating I remember sitting in a baseball field and just playing with his hair as we talked,” James shuddered at the memory.

“How the heck, what kind of witchcraft is that?,” Eliza stops herself there. “Anyways, you said he was ‘super gushy’ what do you mean by that?” Eliza giggles. She really is treating this like highschool drama. James lays back on his bed and stares up at the ceiling.

“Well, I told you about the love-notes, but he also had this tendency to sneak up behind me in the hallway and wrap his arms around me,” James sighed. He was always doing dumb things like that, they  _ always always _ made James’s heart skip a beat. Those were probably the things that made him fall so hard for Thomas.

“Jeez, he was shameless even back then,” Eliza sighed.

“Mhm, and you should’ve heard the nicknames.  _ Hot stuff _ !  _ Cutie _ !  _ Pretty Boy! _ ” James says, impersonating Thomas’s voice. He heard Eliza giggling over the phone. 

“So how did he end up hurting you?” Eliza asks, her voice suddenly turning serious. James scoffs dryly.

“I walked into the library, it was after school and I wanted to find some book. I walked back to where the book was and all I heard was this weird panting. So I turned the corner and found Thomas grinding on some guy. And looking back on it now, he must’ve been a complete idiot, because I  _ always _ went back there. Anyways, I ended up slapping him and running away. I remember being super angry, then just like falling apart and bawling my eyes out,” James closed his eyes and imagined the scene as he told Eliza.

“Wow, that’s crazy,” Eliza gasped. “Is that what you were talking about when you said you got depressed?” Eliza’s voice lost connection for a second.

“Yeah, I guess he’s kind of the reason I work for him?” James chuckles softly.  _ It’s great how irony works sometimes _ , he thought.

“So what happened after that?” James could hear moving on the other side of the phone and some laughter.

“Well, he kept calling me, though I never picked up. I ended up avoiding him, which was easy, we weren’t in the same grade and didn’t hang out in the same social circles,” James laughs, “And I just stopped seeing him all together, I suppose he just gave up trying to apologize or whatever and just continued with his life.”

“What a prick,” Eliza huffs. “Hurting you. Who does he think he is?” Eliza sighs to herself.

“ _ Eliza _ ,” James laughs.

“I’m sorry, but it’s true,” Eliza giggles. “Hey, I’m going to have to let you go, Maria just got home.”

“Yeah no problem, see you tomorrow,” James answers.

“Bye!” Eliza hangs up. James scoffs and stares at his ceiling blankly. Eliza was right, who gave Thomas the right to break his heart? Who does that? A thought popped into his head.

_ What if I broke his heart? _

James furrowed his brow, could he even do that? And if he did would he feel guilty about it? He pushed the thought out of his head.  _ I couldn’t do that, he’s my boss _ , James scolded himself. James sighed and changed into his sleepwear and went to bed, anxious for what would happen the next day.

\--------

“James, I need you!” Thomas hollered through the pager. James sighs, standing up at his desk. He throws open the door and stomps into Thomas’s office.

“I’m right outside your office, just walk out and talk to me,” James hissed. He’s been irritated the whole morning. It’s mostly because he has to be around Thomas.

“You’re the assistant,” Thomas taunts. James sighs and rolls his eyes.

“Now what do you want?” James asked. Thomas smirks and leans forward. He’s holding out papers.

“Go and make some copies,” Thomas waves them in the air, “I need twenty.”

“Alright, I’ll get them back as soon as I can,” it seems that everything James says somehow comes out sarcastically. He’s putting inflections in just the right places to make it sound bad.

“By the way James,” Thomas stands up and walks towards him. “You’ve been acting weird, is there something you’re not telling me? Something I should know?” Thomas walks up to James and towers over him. James stares up with a blank stare. It’s something you need to learn quick or you’ll never be able to survive. You need to look like you’re neutral, or people can control you. 

“There’s nothing Mr. Jefferson,” James sighs and turns around, he reaches out for the door knob. Thomas’s hand shoots out and stops James from leaving.

“Lying won’t get you anywhere, James, especially with me,” Thomas sighs. James turns his head a bit.

“We’re at a law firm, we get paid to lie,” James pulls the door open and walks away from Thomas. He’s trying to hide his anger as he walks through the halls. Was Thomas like that with all of his assistants? Was Thomas seriously so arrogant that he would do that? 

“Jesus,” James whispers to himself. James gets to the room with the copying machine and throws open the door. Alex is standing attentively at one of the machines, watching it scan the paper. He looks up at James, then looks back down.  _ Now I have to deal with him _ , James thinks and walks to another machine. Silence filled the room, only the sound of the copying machine was existent.

“So how’s your day Madison?” Alex asks, looking up from the machine.

“Tiresome,” James responds bluntly. Alex nods slowly and looks down to the machine again.

“How do you feel about working here,” Alex asks. James looks up skeptically at Alex.

“Thomas’s a dick, but otherwise it’s great,” James responds, looking up to see Alex’s reaction. Alex laughs and sticks his hand out for a high five. James stares at it blankly.

“Why are  _ you _ high fiving me?” James raises an eyebrow at Alex. Alex scoffs and rolls his eyes. He puts his hand down and gathers the papers he was printing and walks out. James looks out the door in utter confusion as Alex walks away.

“Wow, rude,” James rolls his eyes and finishes printing the copies for Thomas. He makes his way down the hall, he can hear Angelica saying something to Alex. He turns a corner to four men standing by the water cooler. 

The first one is tall like Thomas with black curly hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. He’s looking down to the three other people he’s talking to with black expressive eyes. The second guy is around James’s height with brown eyes and a bit of scruff on the bottom of his chin. He has a white button up, dark blue pants, and a grey beanie. He’s leaning against the water cooler and elbowing the tall guy. One of the smaller guy snickers behind their hand. He has long curly hair and freckles that fan across his face. The last one sighs and shakes his head. He has eyes as dark as ink. He’s wearing a three piece suit. The tall one notices James looking at them and waves, which makes all of them turn to him. 

“You’re the new employee?” the tall one asks, he speaks with a thick french accent. 

“Uhm, yes, I’m James Madison. What’s your names?” James walks towards them with the paperwork close to his chest.

“Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier Marquis de Lafayette,” the tall one answers, but when James responds with a confused look he laughs, “But you can call me Lafayette.”

“Aaron Burr,” the ink eyed one answers. He holds a firm hand out to James, he takes it and shakes firmly. 

“John, John Laurens,” the curly haired boy answers, he just waves and smiles, James does the same. 

“And I’m Hercules Mulligan!” the last exclaims. 

“It’s nice to meet you all,” James responds softly. 

“You’re Thomas’s assistant, right?” Aaron asked, moving his cup towards James.

“Yep,” James sighs. Aaron laughed at James’s reaction.

“Jesus, you must be a saint for being tolerate him,” Aaron laughs. James smiled and nodded.

“Stop sidetracking James and get back to work,” Angelica walks by with Alex following quickly behind her. All of the guys laugh nervously and disband from the cooler. James laughs and waves to the guys and walks back to Thomas’s office. James takes a deep breath, trying to swallow the anger that comes with seeing Thomas. James opens the door slowly to Thomas sitting at his desk in a big chair. Thomas just barely looks up from his chair.

“Do you have the papers?” Thomas asks, standing up and walking towards James. James hands Thomas the papers.

“Thanks sweet cheeks,” Thomas responds as he walks past James and out the door.

“What did h-” James starts to violently cough, cutting off what he was going to say.  _ Maybe I’m getting sick again _ , he thinks to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've decided we'll upload a chapter whenever we have it done and revised. At the very least we'll upload once a week, but that'll only really be when we're on a tricky chapter


	4. Nurse Thomas To The Rescue!

Thomas pushes the open the door out to the hallway to yell at James for not responding to the pager. He opens the door to no one. Thomas looks through James’s desk, there’s nothing about him going on a break. Where could he be? Did he quit? Thomas shrugs and goes back into his office.

\----

Thomas went through the day fuming at how annoying it was to not have the assistant. He came to a meeting late because he couldn’t get the papers on time. Angelica ripped him apart, it was terrible. Some point through the day he decided to yell at James about his inconvenience. Thomas didn’t have to work hard to find where James lived. So he told himself to stop by his house and yells at him. He hopped into his car and drove down to the apartment building. Thomas gets out of his car and starts walking up the stairs to the second level. He looks down to his phone (where he wrote James’s address) and walks to a door with two silver colored numbers that read 26. Thomas puts his phone into his pocket and knocks on the door. He waits for James to come and answer the door. No one. Thomas knocks again, this time he hears a groan coming from James’s apartment.  _ Shit! What if he had a seizure and is on the ground in pain? What if there was an intruder and he stabbed James so know he was bleeding out on the ground? _ Thomas thought.  

“Shit, Angelica will kill me if I need another assistant,” Thomas curses. He reaches for the door handle and throws open the door.

“James! Are you okay?” Thomas looks around. His eyes land on James. He’s slumped against his desk with balled up tissues, mucinex, and ibuprofen bottles thrown around the desk. Thomas takes a few steps in and looks at James.

“Oh shit, he’s dead,” Thomas says worriedly. James turns towards him and throws an empty tissue box at him. 

“Oh thank God,” Thomas sighs in relief. James starts violently coughing.

“Are you okay?” Thomas asks, walking closer to James and placing a worrisome hand on his back.

“Why are  _ you  _ here, Thomas?” James asks. Even when he’s sick he can manage to be a jerk to Thomas. Thomas sighs.

“Well, I did come here to yell at you, but obviously you were too sick,” Thomas pushes his hair back as James starts sneezing. Something starts rubbing against Thomas’s legs. He looks down to a cat purring. It has long fluffy pure white hair. It has two different colored eyes, one is a golden yellow color and a light blue eye, but the blue one doesn’t have a pupil. Thomas bends down and pets the bottom of it’s chin. He looks back up to James.

“What’s your cat’s name,” Thomas asks. James’s nose is running and his cheeks are red from sickness. 

“Her name is H- Charlotte! Charlotte!” James stumbles. Thomas ignores how weird James is being, attributing it to him being sick. 

“Here you know what? You should go back home,” James stands up and pulls Thomas up, trying to push Thomas out.

“What are you talking about?” Thomas objects. James starts coughing and props himself against the couch. 

“You’re way too sick to take care of yourself,” Thomas takes James’s arm and puts it over his shoulder. 

“You really don’t need to,” James sneezes. Thomas laughs.

“You worry too much,” Thomas responds, “Here I’ll get you to your bed.” Thomas could see James’s annoyance. But he must’ve realized he wasn’t going to be able to fight it because he just slumped against Thomas. James starts coughing again.

“You know I can walk by myself,” James looks up with tears in his eyes from the coughing fit. Thomas let's James down and he staggers a bit. 

“You really don’t need you to hurgk!”James clasps a hand around his mouth.

“Here, let’s go. Is that you’re room?” Thomas places a hand on James’s back and points to a door. James nods, with his hand still over his mouth. Thomas walks him over to his room. 

“Lie down,” Thomas opens the door and lays him down, pulling the covers over James, he sits on the edge next to him, petting the cat that hops on his lap. “Do you need anything? Medicine? Water? Tissues? Food? A hospital visit?” 

“Well to put it simply,  this isn’t the worst I have been sick.” He took a break to cough before continuing. “And yes Thomas, here fill this up,” He tossed him a water bottle. “saltines should be out on the kitchen counter. Just bring me the box.” Thomas moved to get him James the medicine and food, before he leaves the room he heard a faint ‘thank you’ from James. Thomas walks back into the living room and walks to the sink. He fills up the water bottle and plops it onto the counter. Thomas looks around the counter for the Saltines and his eyes land on them. He walks over and notices James’s phone laying on the counter. Thomas shrugs and picks up the box. He hears a  _ ding  _ from James’s phone, against his best judgement he looked back and looked at the text. It was from the counter girl, “ _ I still cannot believe he cheated on you _ ”. 

“Jesus, his boyfriend cheated on him and he’s sick, some people just can’t catch a break,” Thomas whispers as he grabs the water bottle and makes his way back to the room. He slides open the door. The small crack of light falls over James’s face. He’s out cold. Thomas scoffs softly and walks up to James, to make sure he’s asleep. He sets the water bottle and saltines on the bedside table. 

“Hey? James?” he asks. There’s no response, just the slow rise and fall of his chest. Thomas laughs, he looks so calm when he’s asleep. Thomas shrugs and walks back out of the room. He looks around the living room/kitchen and his eyes land on the TV. _Well I can’t just leave him, what if he starts coughing up blood or something?_ Thomas thinks. Taking a seat on the couch. He clicks the TV on and opens Netflix, he turns on one of James’s recommends, and sits back. It’s _10 Things I Hate About You_. He watches the movie until his eyes start to wander, they land on a big book in James’s book shelf. He stands up and starts look through it. _James’s Baby Book_ is labeled neatly across the spine. Thomas laughs as he looks at the picture of a naked James in a bathtub. He turns to a page with a small James, he looks about three, with a big barber’s cape around him and a big goofy smile. _Maddy’s first haircut_.   
“Maddy?” Thomas chuckles. It actually sounds nice, maybe that’ll be the next thing he can use to embarrass James. Thomas laughs and shuts the book, putting it back into the bookshelf. Charlotte started to rub up against Thomas’s leg. He bent down and started running his hand down the cat’s back. He picked the cat up and sat back down on the couch. The cat jumped off his lap and ran off to the cat tree in the corner jumping up and hiding in the very top section.  Thomas sighs and walks back to the James’s bedroom. He opens the door and pokes his head in. 

“You still asleep,” Thomas whispers into the dark room. There’s no response. Thomas looks back into the living room and out the window. The sky was dark and the light posts illuminated the street. Thomas realizes he’s hungry and walks back into James’s room. 

“James?” Thomas says louder. James stirs a bit in his bed. “JAMES!” Thomas says loudly. James opens his eyes and glares at Thomas.

“ _ What _ ?” James hissed. Thomas rolls his eyes.

“Sorry I’m hungry and I was going to ask you what you wanted for dinner,” Thomas explained. James sat up and bit and clutched his head.

“You’re honestly not making any sense,” James sighed. 

“I’m hungry, so I want to make food for you and me,” Thomas repeats. James shook his head.

“You can go, really,” James looked up at Thomas. His cheeks were red from the fever and his nose was running.

“Yeah right you can barely walk, let alone cook yourself some food,” Thomas sighed, pushing James into his bed.

“I can walk!” James objects. He slammed his fists onto his thighs, like a child when they throw a temper-tantrum. 

“Then walk over here and push me out of your room,” Thomas walked over to the door frame and leaned against. 

“Fine I will,” James pushed himself out of his bed and stood. He immediately stumbled and slammed his hand down onto the bedside table. “Whatever, but if you’re making food I’m sitting in the living room with you, I honestly don’t trust you to burn down my kitchen,” James sighed, pushing his hand onto his forehead. 

“Then follow me Maddy,” Thomas slid over to James and looped his arm around James’s.

“Call me that again and you’ll be dead,” James spat. Thomas laughed.

“And you’ll be jobless,” Thomas retorted. James opened his mouth to say something but quickly shut it.  _ That’s what I thought _ , Thomas smirked. Thomas guided James to his couch.

“You’re watching 10 Things I Hate About You? I really wanted to watch that,” James groaned.

“You’re a rom-com person? And you can just rewind it, I wasn’t really watching it,” Thomas asked. James reached for the remote and started to rewind it.

“I am, I have the tendency to be a hopeless romantic,” James responded quickly. Thomas started to rummage around the cupboards. James took a quick breath in.

“You don’t remember?” James turned his head only slightly. Thomas stopped rummaging and turns to James.

“Remember what?” Thomas asked, his arms were still up and he had to crane his neck to see under the cupboards. James laughs sharply and shakes his head. “Remember what?” Thomas repeats. James starts to study the creases in his hand.

“Nevermind,” James sighs.  _ Why is this guy so weird? _ Thomas wondered.

“Wh-.”

“I said nevermind,” James stated harshly. Thomas decided not push it and bends down to look through the cabinets.

“Do you only have ramen and Gushers in your kitchen?” Thomas looks up. James turns.

“I haven’t gone shopping in a while,” James responds blankly.  _ Maybe I upset him _ , Thomas thought as he studied James’s back. His shirt thin and clung to his back.  _ Whatever, he said not to ask so it’s not my problem _ . 

“Then I’ll have to go and buy some things at the corner store,” Thomas decided as he stood up and strode to the door. He laced his scarf around his neck and placed a hand on the door.

“I’ll be right back, so don’t fall asleep again,” Thomas joked as he left room. It had gotten colder since early today, the cold must be coming soon. Thomas walks down the stairs and out down the street.  _ Wait what does he even want to eat? _ Thomas wonders. He shrugs and pulls out his phone, crossing the street and walking towards the store. The phone starts to ring and Thomas enters the store. 

“Hello, who’s this,” James asks in a polite voice.

“Hey Maddy, what kind of food do you want?” Thomas asks. He could hear James sigh.

“I don’t know,” James answered tiredly. Thomas started to look for the pasta section.

“Then you can have some macaroni and cheese,” Thomas decided.   
“Wha-” Thomas ended the call and started collecting the ingredients. Thomas got everything and checked out.

“Yum, mac n’ cheese,” Thomas licked his lips and started walking back to the apartment building. Thomas reached the door to James having a coughing fit on the couch. 

“Hey Maddy, I got everything, I can start cooking,” Thomas held the the bags up. James motioned him to the kitchen and continued to cough. Thomas chuckled and started to cook. Thomas heard Charlotte jump off of the cat jungle and onto the ground.

“Hanni?” James asked weakly. Thomas looked over to James, he was looking over to the cat and was smiling smalling.

“Is that your ex’s name?” Thomas asks as he pours macaroni shells into the water.

“My ex?” James furrowed his eyebrows and looked at Thomas like he was crazy. 

“Yeah the one Eliza was talking about,” Thomas shrugged, “Sorry, I saw that Eliza texted you and it was talking about some guy cheating on you.” James stared at Thomas with a confused look on his face. His eye twitched and his face turned red.

“Oh, erm, yeah, that’s my ex. His name was, uh, Henry! And his nickname was Hanni,” James stuttered. Thomas looked at him skeptically. He could see how James was squirming under Thomas’s gaze.

“Are you lying to me?” Thomas asked finally. James looked away with a scared look. “You work for me, I wouldn’t suggest lying to me.”

“With all due respect, I’m paid to lie,” James answered sheepishly. Thomas scoffs at James’s tone.  _ Jesus, if you’re going to back talk don’t phrase it like a question _ , Thomas thought.

“It was an old flame,” James responded. He said it so quiet that Thomas just barely heard him. Thomas stirred the mac n’ cheese, thinking about James’s response for a second.

“Old flame, huh? How old?” Thomas prods the question.

“Uhm, eleven years old?” James’s voice went higher as he said this. Thomas stopped stirring and turned his head back to James. A memory flashed in his head, but he shook it away.

“You’re still stuck on some guy from eleven years ago? Jesus, was it George Clooney?” Thomas snorted, looking back to pot of food.  _ Jesus, we’re the same _ .

“No,” James sighed, “He- I just was kind of starstruck by this guy.” Thomas nodded.

“So why would you bring this up to Eliza?” Thomas asks. James face turns redder.

“He put himself back in my narrative.”

“Poetic,” Thomas teased, but when he saw James’s expression he stopped. He looked anxious, he looked mad, but for some reason tears were rolling down his face.

“Oh Jesus, don’t cry. I don’t know what to do when people cry, let alone you or any of my other employees,” Thomas frantically walks over to James. James doesn’t meet his eyes, he just continues to study his hands, tears falling to them every few seconds.

Thomas reaches out a hand and moves to touch his shoulder. “I’m really so-”

“Don’t touch me,” James hissed softly as soon as Thomas’s hand made contact with his 

shoulder. James sounded pissed, but he seemed afraid to raise his voice.

James looked up and stared at Thomas angrily. His eyes were pink and there was still a gathering of tears around the corner of his eyes. Thomas was taken aback and his hand hung  James took a deep breath and wiped his cheeks. “Sorry, just,” James trails off. Thomas nods silently and busies himself with the mac n’ cheese. 

“Well whoever he was, I bet cheating on you was the biggest mistake of his life.” Thomas ended it there. He could hear a faint scoff from James. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that Navi and I forgot last week's chapter! So her and I have decided to post twice this week!  
> -Hest


	5. Hot Guys and Chicken Noodle Soup

James awoke to the smell of coffee.  _ Thomas is here still.  _ Last night all he could remember was eating mac and cheese, taking some meds, then passing out with Hanni on his chest.  James sat up and felt the bed covers sliding off his chest.  _ How did I get from the couch to my room _ ? James pushes Hanni off of his lap and steps out of bed and sways towards the door frame. He looks to the tall figure standing at the coffee pot.

“Jesus, this cheap ass coffee,” Thomas mutters as he mixes the creamer. Thomas takes a slow sip of his coffee and swishes it around in his mouth. He looks at the wall for a second and slowly spits it back in the cup. “What type of sugary dirt water is this?” Thomas mutters as he wipes his and dumps the coffee into the sink. 

“What are you doing?” James looks down at the grey pajama pants, “Why are you wearing my pajamas?” Thomas looks down and shrugged.

“Oh yeah, well you had fifteen pairs of gray pajama pants in like three different sizes so I found the biggest pair and decided to wear them. None of your shirts fit so I went shirtless.” James looks Thomas and sighs deeply. 

“I’m so done,” James shook his head and plopped down onto the couch. He threw his legs over the arm of the couch and turned on the TV. 

“Can you put on a shirt now?” James sighs. 

“But I don’t wanna!” Thomas whines. James pushes himself up on his elbow and shots Thomas a glare.

“Are you serious,” James sighs. Thomas pouts and lays his head on his palms. “You act like a toddler,” James puffs and lays back down on the couch. 

“You know, Maddy, I have a hot date soon,” Thomas leans over the back of the couch and shakes his coffee mug back and forth in James’s face.  _ #gotohell _ , James thinks, and the writers tbh.

“Good,” James says blankly, looking back to the movie. 

“Wow, I’m hurt. I thought you actually enjoyed my company,” Thomas fake-pouted. James shook his head.

“Ever heard of delusions-of-grandeur?” James looked back to Thomas. Thomas glared of to James.

“Well, fine, I’ll leave,” Thomas went for his coat, but left his hand hanging in the air as he looked down. “Uhm, where do you want me to put your pants?” Thomas looked over to James with a weary smile.

“Just keep them, you’ve corrupted them enough,” James mumbled, focusing on the movie playing. 

“You’ve got-,” Thomas stops himself and smirks mischievously. “You know what? Fine, I’ll go and change in your bathroom,” Thomas grabs the stack of neatly folded clothes and walks to the bathroom.

“Whatever,” James responded absently. After a few minutes Thomas reemerges from the bathroom with a pair of glasses. He’s wearing a white button up and black slacks with his jacket slung over his shoulder. James sits up and looks at him skeptically. 

“Why are you wearing fake glasses?” James asks. Thomas raises an eyebrow at James and smirks.

“What do you mean?” Thomas asks, pushing up his glasses. 

“You don’t have any lenses in the frame,” James notes. Thomas squints and takes off his glasses.

“Whoops,” Thomas sighs as he fishes around in his bag. He pulls out a pair of tortoiseshell glasses and puts them on.

“You  _ would _ have two pairs of fake glasses in your purse,” James shakes his head.

“It’s not a  _ purse _ , it’s a  _ satchel _ ,” Thomas objects. James rolls his eyes and lays back down.

“Either way,” James sighs. Thomas scoffs and pulls open the door to Eliza struggling with a few bags of groceries in her hands. 

“Thomas?” Eliza looks back to James with a confused look. 

“Bye Maddy! Excuse me, counter girl,” Thomas sing-songs as he breezes past Eliza. She stands in the doorway, staring at nothing. Eliza snaps out of her trance and squinted at James.

“What the heck? Maddy?” Eliza whispers as she walks into James’s apartment and shuts the door. “Why was Thomas here?” Eliza walks quickly to the counter and sets down the bags.

“He came over last night,” James shrugged.

“That’s not helping your case,” Eliza exclaimed. James shook his head.

“No, I was super sick yesterday and after work he came over and “nursed me back to health”. Which was really just him using my Netflix and me sleeping,” James sighed, and helped Eliza empty the bags.

“He sounds like he was a lot of help,” Eliza snickers. James laughs along.

“Oh yeah, totally,” James says. He picks up the empty bag and crumples them up.

“You know, for someone so hot, you’d think he’d be helpful,” Eliza shrugged.

“Helpful is definitely not a word I’d use to describe Thomas,” James laughs. “What’s all of this food for?” James asks, looking over all of the things.

“Angie told me you were sick, so I thought I’d come over and make you some chicken noodle soup!” Eliza beamed as she held up a box of noodles. James chuckled. “Now where is all of your pots?” Eliza asks, looking at all of the cabinets and cupboards in confusion. James points to one and Eliza opens it. She jumps out of the way to dodge a falling pot. 

“Jesus, he can’t put away dishes?” James mutters, quickly picking up the pot and rewashing it. 

“Thomas?” Eliza asks, pulling another one from the cupboard. 

“Yeah, he insisted he’d make me mac n’ cheese,” James sighs as he dries the pot.

“I don’t understand people like Thomas,” Eliza sighs as she starts to cook. 

“What do you mean?” James looks back to her.

“He acts all charming and “helpful”, making people fall in love with him, then when he’s done with them he breaks their heart,” Eliza sighs as she pours some chopped veggies into the soup.

“Charming is not exactly the word I’d use to describe him,” James laughs. “But annoying? Probably,” James leans back against the counter.

“James, be careful around Thomas. Don’t fall for him, you’ll end up cracked and broken on the pavement,” Eliza shakes her head. 

“Did you just describe my eighth grade egg drop?” James smirks. Eliza chuckles a bit. She looks back at James and sighs, she places the wooden spoon on the counter.

“James, I’m serious, you’ll be more,” Eliza thinks of the right word to say, “predisposed to Thomas’s advances.”

“Why would I be more predisposed?” James furrows his eyebrows. Eliza looks at him like it’s obvious.

“You two used to date?” Eliza laughs nervously. James cocks an eyebrow at her.

“He cheated on me though, why would I fall in love again?” James asked. 

“You can’t control feelings, James, you’ll just end up hurting yourself more,” Eliza sighed, turning back to the soup.

“Anyways, what did you do yesterday?” James asks, desperately wanting to change the topic. Eliza shrugs.

“Nothing much, really, I ate lunch with Maria. And Thomas asked about you. But nothing really,” Eliza poured some liquid into the soup.

“Aw, you and Maria are so cute!” James smiles. Eliza turns around and looks at him dumbfounded.

“You’re not going to ask about Thomas?” Eliza asks.

“No? Should I?” 

“Yes, he seemed pretty pissed,” Eliza explained. James sighed, she wasn’t going to let it go until he asked.

“Fine, what did he say then?” James caved in. Eliza smiled a bit.

“Well he stomped up to my desk and started shouting for me to see where you were,” Eliza laughed, pushing in some cooked chicken into the soup.

“Jesus, stalker much?” James snickered. 

“Now, I have a question for you,” Eliza looked back to James.

“What?”

“Maddy? What’s that about?” Eliza chuckles.

“I actually have no idea. It’s an old nickname my parents had for me, since our last name is Madison,” James responded, shrugging. “And last night I woke up from a nap and he started calling me Maddy,” James sighs, pushes himself up and sits on the counters.

“How did he even find out about the nickname?” Eliza asks. 

“No idea,” James says as he watches his legs swing back and forth. 

“So are there any other juicy details about your ‘sleepover’” Eliza teases. James sticks his tongue out at Eliza.

“Yeah, there are some,” James says. 

“Give me some!” Eliza quickly turns off the stove and separates the soup into two bowls.

“Well, firstly, he took my pajama without my permission,” James sighed, massaging his temples. He could hear Eliza snickering, “And then he tried to make me feel bad that I didn’t have a date!” James shook his head. 

“Hold up, what?” Eliza hands James his bowl and motions towards the couch. They start to make their way over to the living room.

“Yeah this morning he was all like “Oooh I have a hot date”” James faked Thomas’s voice, “And I really didn’t care, so he got all pissy.”

“Wait,” Eliza sat down on the end of the couch, and James sat on the other side. “What if he was trying to make you jealous?” Eliza said pointing her spoon at James.

“I highly doubt that,” James laughs. Eliza shakes her head as she finishes her bite of food.

“What if he remembers your guy’s relationship?” Eliza asks. James shook his head.

“No, I don’t think he remembers,” James shrugs, taking another bite of food. 

“What? Why would you think that?” Eliza asks.

“Oh, you should’ve seen it. We were talking about our old relationship,” James smiled over at Eliza.

“What?” Eliza’s eyes widened.

“Yeah, he didn’t even realize it. In fact he said “I’m sure him cheating on you was the guy’s biggest mistake of his life”, apparently he was wrong, because it doesn’t sound like his biggest mistake,” James sighed, with a slight laugh. 

“I would’ve never guessed that Thomas would offer me advice about our relationship,” James jokes. Eliza shakes her head. 

“He’s unbelievable,”  Eliza shakes her head.

“You can say that again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Navi and I are super sorry about the lack of updates! We were finishing a trimester at our school so we had a lot of work to do! We'll be updating a lot today and tomorrow, so we can catch up on our schedule! Also, also, thanks for all of the praise you guys are giving us! Yesterday I checked AO3 and was like "Holy guacamole, we got so many kudos!". We literally can't thank you enough! 
> 
> (This is an added note: the next two chapters will be about Thomas's background in this story so get ready for angst!)


	6. Drunken Truths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw, Thomas is a truthful drunk! (It's important info)

James thumbs through a few of the papers that Thomas had assigned him to catalog. They related to some case Thomas had recently finished. James heard the office door click and Thomas step out. 

“Here you go Maddy,” Thomas said holding out a fancy garment bag.

“What is this?” James asked as he stood up and stared at the bag.

“It’s those pants I borrowed. I went to a dry cleaner’s and had them cleaned,” Thomas explained, shoving the into James’s arms.

“You could’ve just washed them in a washing machine, it’s less money. And why did you use such a fancy bag?” James squinted up at Thomas. 

“You said I had corrupted them so I didn’t want to put them in with my clothes,” Thomas shrugged and leaned against the wall.

“This seems like a lot more trouble than you should’ve gone to,” James sighed, fishing out his pajamas and stuffing them into his bag. “Rich people,” James sighs.

“Here, have the bag back, I don’t need it,” James said, tossing the bag to Thomas. Thomas caught it and smirked.

“Hey, Lafayette, Alexander, and I are going to the bar after work, do you want to come?” Thomas asked, with that cocky voice.

“I don’t have anything to do later, so sure,” James shrugged and sat back down in his chair.

“Can’t wait to see you there,” Thomas opened his office’s door and looked back, “Maddy.” 

\-----------

James got out of his car and stared at the big “bar” Thomas had sent directions too. It didn’t look like what you usually think of when people say “bar”. You usually picture a dingy old bar with swearing patrons, but this bar looked like the exact opposite. It was tall and pristine with fancy decorations. There were potted plants and neon signs decorated across the building. James watched as Lafayette’s car pulls up beside his. 

“Bonjour, Monsieur James!” Lafayette called as he exited his car. James smiled and waved to him and they walked up to the bar together.

“Have you ever been here before James?” Lafayette asks as he throws open the door. 

“I can’t say I have,” James responds with a dry laugh. Lafayette nods and points to the other side of the bar.

“The other two should be over there. Let’s hope they’re not making out,” Lafayette nudges James’s shoulder and starts to stride over there. 

“Have you found them like that before?” James chuckles awkwardly. Lafayette looks down at James and nods.

“Jesus, they’re so shameless,” James shakes his head. “Why don’t they just start going out?” James asks, looking back up to Lafayette.

“I don’t think Alex is very good with commitment,” Lafayette shrugs. James bumps into someone’s chair and apologizes.

“Wh-what do you mean?” James asks, looking back to Lafayette.

“Well, I’m not sure it’s really my place to tell, but, when he was young his dad left. Then a few years later his mom got sick and died. After that he lived with his cousin, but they ended up committing suicide,” Lafayette leans down and whispers into his ear.

“Jesus that’s definitely a good reason,” James looked down to his feet. 

“Yeah, uh, we’re almost there,” Lafayette pointed to the two men. They were talking about something, Thomas’s arm was draped over the back of his seat while the other held a martini. Alex was sitting next to him and was hunched over his drink. When Thomas noticed them walking up he waved.

“I didn’t think the prude would come,” Thomas teased. Lafayette snickered and sat next to Alex, leaving James to sit on the opposite side of Thomas.

“What the fuck did you just call me?” James hissed. Thomas threw his head back and laughed.

“Aw, come on, it was just a joke,” Thomas nudged James with his glass. James rolled his eyes. James looked carefully over the menu, looking at all of the expensive drinks.

“Jesus H. Christ, why is everything so expensive?” James muttered to himself.

“You know, I could pay for you,” Thomas offered nonchalantly. James squinted at Thomas, noticing Alex turning around for a split second.

“You don’t need to,” James sighed, looking back to the menu.

“I’ve seen your pantry, trust me I can buy you a ten dollar drink,” Thomas laughed.

“I guess, if you’re really fine with it,” James smiles smally.

“Go ahead,” Thomas said motioning towards his drink. James nodded and looked down to the menu as Thomas joined Lafayette and Alex’s conversation.

“Hey, could I get a Gin and tonic?” James orders as he holds up his finger. The bartender nods and starts to work on the drink. 

“Hey there,” a tall guy slides down into the stool next to James.  _ Jesus _ . He turns and looks the stranger up and down. He has soft features and blonde curly hair that falls into his green eyes. James rests his head on his palm and smirks.

“Hey,” James responds as the bartender places his drink next to him.

“Do you come here often?” the man responds. James shakes his head.

“That makes sense, I would’ve seen a cutie like you,” the guy takes a sip of his drink.

“Oooh, you must think you’re so smooth,” James teased.

“I like to think I am,” the guy smiled. He had perfect teeth. James could feel the three other guys looking at him.

“Do you pick up unsuspecting guys at bars a lot?” James asked with a smile on his lips.

“Nope, I just thought I’d make an exception  for you,” the guy flirted. James smiled at the guy. “Here take this,” the guy scribbled his number onto a napkin. He placed it into James’s palm. James looked down at the paper and looked back into the guy’s eyes. A small smirk starts to grow on James’s lips. 

“Surprise! You’re not getting laid tonight!” James exclaimed happily as he rips the napkin in half. He could hear the other guys laughing hysterically. The guy’s face went bright red.

“Asshole,” the guy huffs and storms off. James chuckled a bit and took a sip of alcohol. He looked over at the other guys and sees all of their hysterical expressions.

“I didn’t think you’d be able to do that,” Alex laughed. James snickered.

“I’ve dealt with a lot of fuckboys,” James laughed, taking another sip of his drink.

“No way, little ol’ James? A fuckboy magnet?” Thomas teased.  _ You were one of them dickhead _ , James thought.

“I suppose,” James shrugged. 

“Why would  _ you _ be a fuckboy magnet?” Lafayette inquired.

“I think it was because I started dating this really popular guy at our school, so everyone wanted to date me after that,” James guessed. They all laughed at this. All of the sudden they heard yells and a few glasses shattering. Alex and Lafayette shoot up and craned their necks to see. 

“Bar fight!” Thomas cheered. Alex looked over to Lafayette excitedly.

“Let’s go!” Alex cheered, hopping down from his stool. They raced over to the fight and started cheering, leaving Thomas and James alone. 

“Aren’t you going to go over there?” James asks, looking over to Thomas. 

“Nah, bar fights aren’t my thing,” Thomas giggled.  _ He sounds drunk _ , James thought, noting the empty glasses near Thomas. “Now brawls, that’s where I want to be,” Thomas raised his glass a bit.

“You sound like you’re from the 50’s,” James teased. Thomas laughed as he took another sip of beer.

“I did them a lot when I was younger,” Thomas explained. James shook his head and scoffed.

“Why would you do that?” James asked. Thomas shrugged.

“At first I did it for fun, but later I did it to release some steam,” Thomas chuckled, taking another drink of his beer. 

“Release some steam?” James raises his eyebrow at Thomas.

“Yeah, in highschool I went through this really hard breakup,” Thomas sighed half-heartedly. James didn’t know how to respond to the sudden change in attitude. 

“Oh no,” James responded absently, “What happened?” James knew he’d regret asking the question if it wasn’t about him, but it’d be so gratifying if was about him. To see Thomas just as broken up about the relationship as James had been. 

“Are you sure you want to hear about it?” Thomas was slurring his words.

“Yeah, I do,” James’s heartbeat was in his ears as he waited in anticipation.

“When I was in highschool I was dating this really cute guy. He was in a grade or two below me so a lot of my friends thought it was kind of weird, but I didn’t care that much. We went out for like a month or two, and somehow,” Thomas set down his empty glass and pushed his palms against his eyes. James nervously takes a sip of his drink. “Somehow I fell in love with him,” Thomas lamented. James chokes on the drink he took. 

“But me being the stupid, cocky, lil’ shit I was decided to throw it all away,” Thomas sighed and laid his head on his palm. James looked down at his hands.  _ Why does he have so much remorse in his eyes _ , James thought,  _ it makes me feel bad for him _ . James shook his head,  _ no, don’t feel bad for this asshole _ .

“Oddly enough I remember it so well,” Thomas laughed dryly, “Some guy was flirting with me and we snuck away to go and make out. We went into this old part of the library, that no one ever went to, and,” Thomas pushes back his hair. “And I hear this sound, I think it was like a book falling, so I turn and I see the guy’s heart-broken expression. And I swear my heart just fractured into a million little pieces.” Thomas stares at his glass wistfully.

“I ran up to him and tried to say sorry, but he slapped me,” Thomas pulled his hand down the side of his face, “Which I definitely deserved.” James bit his lip and met Thomas’s eyes.

“He ran off, and I can remember thinking “You never deserved a guy like him”. I felt like crap and tried to find him to apologize to him, I think I was hoping we could somehow rekindle our relationship, but he always ran away when I tried to talk to him,” Thomas looked away from James. “But then I had to move away so I could never say sorry,” Thomas shakes his head. And looks back to James, his eyes looking over every inch of his face.

“You know, when you first walked into my office I thought you looked exactly like him,” Thomas smiled weakly.  _ That’s probably because I am him _ , James thought. “And something in me wanted to apologize to you,” Thomas stared into James’s eyes, like he was looking for something.  James wanted to look away, but something inside him told him not to. 

“Wow,” James said blankly. Thomas shook his head.

“I know, I’m a dick,” Thomas smiled wearily at James.

“Do you even remember m-, I mean, the kid’s name?” James asked. Thomas looked away dejectedly.

“No,” Thomas answered.

“You’re a piece of work Thomas,” James shook his head, “You sure sound like you cared.”

“Shut up,” Thomas hissed. He took a deep breath. “I really did care about him. In fact,” Thomas looked down at his hands, “In fact he was the only guy I’ve ever cried over.”  _ Cried over? He cried over me? _

“I’m- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude,” James awkwardly touched Thomas’s shoulder.

“It’s fine, I was the being a douche,” Thomas scoffed. 

“Hey, we’re back, the guys got thrown out,” Alex and Lafayette walked up.

“And I had money on the red haired guy,” Lafayette slumped into his seat.


	7. Night Terrors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyy, so this chapter is about a bit of Thomas's backstory in this fic. There's verbal abuse on his mother's part, so if that triggers so don't read it or precede with caution! I also wanted to say that if I didn't do a very good job with describing this, I'm sorry, because I don't know how it feels. (I also think it gives me a bit of leeway, since it is a dream). But I'll stop rambling, we hope you enjoy!

Thomas opened his eyes and smelt bacon cooking on the stove. He sat up wobbly and looked around the room. The walls were brown with white furniture and light blue accents. It looked like his mother’s house. 

“Hello?” Thomas called. No one responded, he walked around the house. Everything was the same, the fur-covered cat bed, the red-brown stain on the carpet, even the potted plant that was quickly dying was the same. He looked around and found his way to the kitchen. He stood in the doorway, watching his mother cooking something. She didn’t have the deep wrinkles she had now and her short, not graying, curly hair was pulled into a thick ponytail. 

“Mom?” Thomas asks blankly. His mother glances over and continues to cook.

“Thomas, get a plate to put these on,” she sighs. Thomas furrows his brow and nods. He reaches into a cabinet and pulls out a plate. Thomas walks over to his mother and looks over her shoulder. 

“Don’t be annoying, it’s only bacon,” his mother hisses. She spins around and jabs Thomas in the stomach with her spatula. This causes Thomas to jump back and drop the plate onto the ground. A loud crash and the scattering china make Thomas’s heart skip a beat. He looked worriedly up at his mother. Her shoulders were held up high and she was looking at him from the tip of his nose.

“You dumb child,” his mother sneered. Thomas knelt down and starts to pick the broken pieces.

“How did you even drop that? Are you an idiot?” his mother insisted. 

“Sorry,” Thomas mumbled. He could hear his cackle.

“You should be sorry, you can’t do anything right!” his mother said matter-o-factly. Thomas nodded silently and continued to pick up the pieces. 

“You’re a failure,” his mother knelt down and stuck his face into Thomas’s. 

“I wish I had aborted you,” his mother said again. Thomas could feel tears welling up in his eyes.

“Sorry,” Thomas whispered.

“Thomas! You faliure!” his mother screamed. Thomas shook his head.

“Thomas!”

“Thomas?”

\---------

“Thomas?” James was shaking Thomas’s shoulder. Thomas lifted his head from his arms and looked at James. He looked scared and was clutching manilla folders to his chest.

“Why are you crying?” James squinted at Thomas. Thomas hurriedly wiped at his face.

“I’m fine, it must’ve been the was I was sleeping,” Thomas shrugged. James looked like he wanted ask more, but he didn’t, thankfully. “Now, what did you want?” Thomas asked. 

“Oh! Here,” James held out the folders, and Thomas took them, “We have a meeting later, Mrs.Schuyler wants you to look over these before the meeting.” Thomas flipped through a few of them and smiled up at James. 

“Okay.”

“No problem! If you need me I’ll be outside,” James waved and left his office. 

“Perfect timing,” Thomas whispered to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will not be the extent that we go into Thomas's background, so be prepared for some more later down the line!


	8. The True Nature of Angelica Schuyler

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We see a new side of Angelica Schuyler.

Chapter 8

The True Nature of Angelica Schuyler 

 

“James we have a meeting today, you’re going in with me,” Thomas called over the pager. James sighed.  _ Is it really so much work to walk out and talk to me? _ James walked into Thomas’s office. Thomas was surrounded by papers and charts.

“Uh, what do you want me to do,” James asked from the front of the room. Thomas looks up at 

James. 

“What do you mean?” Thomas asks, looking back down at his papers. 

“Is there anything you want me to prepare for the meeting?” James rolls his eyes.  _ He has the _

_ attention span of a goldfish _ . 

“Oh,” Thomas flips through his papers, trying to find something. “Here, can you copy this I need enough for everyone in the meeting,” Thomas holds out the paper. James studies it for a moment then plucks it out of his hand. James starts to leave the room.

“Thanks,” Thomas mumbles. James pauses for a second and looks back. Thomas notices and looks up.

“What? Was that the first time you’ve ever told me thanks?” James asks blankly. Thomas thinks for a moment. 

“I guess,” Thomas shrugs and goes back to doing work. James sighs and starts to make his way to the copy machine room.  _ How is it, that I’ve worked here for half a month and this is the first time he’s said thank you?  _ James gets to the room and starts the machine.  _ How could someone that high up in his field be so rude? _ James sighs and shakes his head.  _ He really is hopeless _ .

“James!” a cheery voice came from the door frame. James turns around to find John standing in the doorway with a big grin painted on his face. James smiled back.

“Hey!” James responded hold up his hand. John walked over to the copier besides James.

“Where were you a few days ago? Jefferson was fuming the whole day. You should’ve seen the fear of his face when Angelica was chewing him out,” John laughed. James smiled down at the copier.

“I was sick, but I would pay to see Thomas like that,” James laughs. John nods with a smile.

“Laf told me about that stunt you pulled in the bar, that seemed pretty severe,” John looked over with a playful smile. 

“Yeah, but the severe always seems to leave an impression,” James responded. James and John couldn’t think of anything else to say so they stood in silence. With only the sound of the copiers printing paper.

“Hey, uhm, can I ask you a pretty weird question?” John looked over wearily. James looked confused, wondering what he would ask.

“Sure.”

“Uhm, did-uh- did Alex say anything about me at the bar last night?” John looked away from James and his face was tinted red. 

“Wait, do you like him?!” James whispered with a hushed urgency. John just looked down at his hands.

“No way! He’s a piece of trash, you’re too good for him!” James gawked. John laughed a bit.

“Who’s a piece of trash?” a voice came from the doorway. They both turn and see Alex walking over to the printer. James and John exchange looks.

“No one,” James answers. Alex glances at the two of them, then shrugs and goes back to working on the printer. James’s papers finish printing and he looks over at John, who at this point is frozen in place. James chuckles a bit.

“Bye John,” James smiles as he leaves. He looks back to see John looking at him, he looks like he’s pleading with James to save him. James waves with a smirk and walks away. James walks down the hallway and notices Lafayette leaning against a wall over Hercules. James snickers and opens Thomas’s door. Thomas is leaning against his desk, staring out the window.

“Do you just pose, waiting for someone to walk in on you?” James shakes his head and holds out the papers. Thomas turns with an annoyed look. “Oh God, you do!” James laughs. Thomas rolls his eyes and takes the papers.

“Follow me, the meeting is starting soon,” Thomas gestures for James to follow. They start to walk down the hallway. James is forced to jog faster so he doesn’t fall behind Thomas’s long strides. 

“What are we having a meeting about?” James asks, having to look up. Thomas looks down with a far-off expression.

“What?” Thomas asks. James raises his eyebrow. 

“What’s the meeting about?” James repeats. 

“Figure it out yourself,” Thomas sighed, pushing the papers into James’s hands.  _ This guy…  _ James flips through the stack of papers, reading a few passages every so often.

“So we’re having a meeting on a case? It looks like armed robbery,” James stated handing back the papers.

“Yep, nice sleuthing Shaggy,” Thomas smirks as he opens the door to the meeting room. James sighs and walks in. The room was sleek with a big glass table in the center of the room surrounded by nice swivel chairs. It smells like clean linen and a bit of a citrusy smell. Hercules, Lafayette, John, Aaron, and women he’s never met are sitting at the table talking about the weather and new changes around the workplace. Thomas breezes past James and sits down, motioning James to sit in the seat besides him. James complies and watches people talk and mumble.

“You might want to read the case more thoroughly Angelica gets here,” Thomas leans over and whispers to James. James nods and starts to read the case. A few minutes pass before Angelica walks through the door. Whenever Angelica walks into the room an air of confidence follows. Though it is deserved, she’s one of the youngest women in law.

“Sorry I’m late, I was busy talking with a different client,” Angelica puffs as she plops down into a seat, followed shortly behind by Alex. James notices the wave Alex gives Thomas, and the playful scoff from Thomas. “I assume everyone has read about the case?” Angelica asks, straightening out her papers. There’s a collective nod from the group. 

“It’s an open and shut case, so start giving me your points,” Angelica sighed, looking up from her papers. Everyone looked around at each other.

“Well, firstly police that searched his house found the mask he used in his garbage bin, so there’s that big piece of evidence,” Thomas sighed, spinning his pen in the air.

“Defense,” Angelica looked up around the room. 

“Well firstly, it’s a ski mask you could buy at Target, so it could really mean nothing. And did they have a search warrant?” Aaron interjected.

“We have the search warrant,” Thomas looked over at James, “James has the photocopied warrants, so he can hand them out.” James leaned over the table and handed everybody a photo of the warrant. 

“Aaron does have a point with the ski mask, you can buy it at Target, anybody could have one,” the woman pointed her finger at Thomas. 

“Yes, but why would he be throwing it away now?” Lafayette asked.

“Maybe he was going through his clothing and throwing some away,” the girl shrugged.

“It’d also be good to point out the defendant’s behavior in the questioning room,” Alex piped up. “He was acting fidgety and kept wringing his hands. I don’t know about you but that seems suspicious to me,” Alex said pointing out places in his paper. 

“Did he bring in a lawyer to talk for him?” Angelica asks, leaning over to read Alex’s notes. 

“Yes, but there were instances when the defendant spoke out without the okay of the lawyer,” Alex looks down at his papers, “like here, he yells that he had been at the laundromat when the robbery took place.” Alex looks up from the paper and looks over everybody in the room.

“They checked the video footage of the laundromat at the specified time and he wasn’t there,” Alex looks over at Angelica, “So like you said open and shut.” Angelica nods. 

“Have they called him in about the fact that his alibi doesn’t match up?” Angelica asks. Alex shakes his head, and Angelica nods.

“Unless there’s no other development then we should win this case,” Angelica gave everybody a warm smile. There was a collective nod from the group, Lafayette and Hercules smiled at one another.

“Hey, Thomas, are you free tonight?” Alex slides between James and Thomas.

“Why?” Thomas cocks an eyebrow at Alex. 

“Ha, you know why,” Alex winked, running his fingers along Thomas’s arm.

“Are Angelica and I the only straight ones here?” Aaron sighs as he stands up.

“I’m straight,” Hercules says raising his hand.

“No you’re not,” Lafayette says pushing Hercules’s hand down. Everybody looked at the two of them.

“Well that answers that question,” Aaron sighs, striding out of the room. 

“So how about tonight?” Alex persists. Thomas looks past Alex and back at James, then quickly back to Alex.

“No thanks,” Thomas answers, shrugging. Alex raises his eyebrows and watches Thomas as he leaves the room.

“Okay?” Alex answers with a dumbfounded expression. James looks at Alex with wide eyes.  _ That’s a sudden change in expression _ , James thinks. 

“James, let’s go,” Thomas calls from the hallway.

“I’m coming Thomas!” James says hurrying out the door. He heard a faint “Thomas? When did that start?” from Alex. James quickly caught up with Thomas, heaving by the time he reached him. 

“What was that all about?” James whispers to Thomas, pointing his thumb back at the meeting room.

“What do you mean?” Thomas asks. 

“You two are a thing, right?”James asks with a raised eyebrow. “So why were you so against meeting up with him?” James had to walk faster to catch up with Thomas.

“My love life is not your concern James Madison,” Thomas sighs, shaking his head. James furrows his brow and looks down to the papers clutched to his chest.

“Is it because you two aren’t “official” yet?” James asks, shielding his mouth from other people’s views.

“What? No, it’s just,” Thomas sighs and massages his temples, “there’s this other person.” Thomas scowls down at James.

“You know what, I’m not talking about this with you,” Thomas sighs, walking even faster, trying to keep James away from him. 

“Thomas Jefferson if you keep on making James do your work for you I will suffocate you with your own feather boa on the front lawn!”  

“Please not again,” George, the law firm’s janitor muttered as he emptied a wastebasket walking off to do other things. 

“Hold the fuck up, I do my OWN work!” Thomas objects. Angelica scoffs.

“Yeah, and George isn’t the smartest person here,” Angelica sighs. Mr. Washington looks up from what he was doing and winks. Thomas gasps and clutches his chest.

“I am the hardest working person here,” Thomas taunts. James and Angelica both laugh at his statement.

“My swivel chair works harder, Thomas!” Angelica looks at Thomas with a better-than-you smile. Angelica peaks down the hall and her face lights up. 

“Pip!” Angelica cheers, running down the hallway in six inch heels.

“WAIT! I’m not done proving my point!” Thomas yells angrily, running at her.

James eyes follows the man to see Eliza and who he assumes the woman that is her wife, standing with a small tired smile. A small boy with a missing tooth and big fluffy hair are holding their hands. His smile is bright and his cheeks are rosy and dusted with freckles.

“Aunty Angie!” the boy yells, slipping his hands out of his mother’s. Angelica reaches the boy and swoops him up in a big bear hug. 

“Philip, I’ve missed you so much!” Angelica snuggled into the freckled boy.

“But Auntie, you saw me yesterday!” Philip giggles. James chuckles at the normally stern Angelica having no self control around her nephew. James looked quickly up at Thomas, he was still fuming, but knew he couldn’t say anything around the little boy.

“I know!” Angelica plopped down the little boy and kneeled next to him.

“Would you like to meet some people who work with your mommies?” Angelica asks with a cheery smile.

“Yeah!” 

“Okay, well I’ll introduce you to Mr. Madison,” Angelica smiled, pulling Philip into her arms.

“Hey! I’m good friends with your mommy, Eliza,” James said waving to the small boy. Philip smiles with big rosy cheeks.

“Hi Mr. Madison, I’m Philip! It’s nice to meet you!” the boy holds out his freckled hand. James takes it and shakes.

“And this is Mr. Jefferson,” Angelica says with a warning fille scowl. Thomas furrows his eyebrows for a second but regains his composure quickly.

“Hey, Philip, nice to meet you,” Thomas smiles. Philip smiles and nods. 

“Okay, well go off with your mommies Mr. Jefferson and I need to talk,” Angelica says putting Philip down and urging him forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi frens, Navi here. The lack of Updates this week was sadly because I was sick from saturday to tuesday. Thankfully Hest took it upon herself to update, so give her praise, she wrote both of the last two chapters on her own (and without my editing, yikes!) My health is better so we are moving into full swing now! I would also want to thank you all for your wonderful comments.  
> -Navi
> 
>  
> 
> [Navi's Tumblr](https://http://navi-senpai.tumblr.com/)  
> [Hestia's Tumblr](http://blubbering-fangirl.tumblr.com/)


	9. Old Spice and Money

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently it isn't a well known fact that Monticello was Thomas Jefferson's home? I'll give you a bit of a run down, so Monticello is in Virginia (duh), was Jefferson's biggest plantation, he made the plans for the house, and it's that little house on the back of the nickel! (Don't feel bad if you didn't know, Navi didn't know either)  
> -Hest

“How have you never been to Club Raven?” Lafayette asked in amazement. His voice was loud and cheery.

“‘Cause I’m not rich like you,” Hercules laughed. James was typing away on his computer, while John was sitting across from him doodling on a piece of paper.  

“Then join me tonight! I’ll pay!” Lafayette offered. Hercules and Lafayette’s little flirting sessions have become more frequent and aggressive as of late.

“I don’t know. Can John and James come too?” Hercules asks, motioning back to the two. James looked up with a blank stare, and one earbud in.

“I have plans for tonight,” James looked back down at his paper work

“What are you going to watch rom-coms and eat ice cream all night?” Lafayette teased.

“No,” James sighed. Yes he was.

“Come on, it won’t be the same without you!” John teased, elbowing James in the side. James thought for a moment.

“Sure I’ll come,” James caved in.

“Great, I’ll ask Thomas and Alexander if they’d like to come too,” Lafayette said standing up from his seat at the table. Hercules nods and goes back to talking about whatever to John.

“James come help me convince them,” Lafayette pulled James up and out of the break room before he could object. Once they were out into the cool hallway Lafayette let go of James’s wrists. 

“Jesus, you have a tight grip,” James whined, rubbing his wrists, “Why did you bring me anyways?” James carefully watched Lafayette.

“Because if Thomas knows you’re coming he’ll come,” Lafayette explained as he started down the hallway. James stood in confusion for a second.

“Wait, wait, wait, why would Thomas say yes if I was there?” James said, hurriedly walking to catch up with Lafayette. Lafayette looked down for a second then went back to walking fast. “Are you going to answer me?” James hissed as they came up on Thomas’s office.

“Nope,” Lafayette answered with a wide, innocent grin as he threw open Thomas’s door. When the door opened Thomas was sitting with his legs up on the desk and tossing a little ball around. Thomas looked up at the two of them and straightened out.

“Hey?” Thomas looked up at Lafayette.

“You free tonight?” Lafayette asks smoothly.

“Yeah, why?” Thomas answered, flashing his eyes towards James for a split second.

“A bunch of us are going to Club Raven so James and I were wondering if you’d come too,” Lafayette explained, when he said James he had pointed over at him. Thomas looked between both of them, with a expression of slight confusion and a bit of worry.

“Sure,” Thomas smirked, standing up from his big leather swivel chair. 

“Awesome, merci beaucoup!” Lafayette cheered, running out of Thomas’s office and down the other direction. He ran so fast that he left James in Thomas’s office.

“So what was that all about? You don’t seem like much of a club person,” Thomas said, walking around to the front of his desk and leaning back onto it.

“I’m not sure,” James blinked at the door, “One moment I was calmly writing on my laptop and the next moment Lafayette was pulling me to go and ask you to join us?” James turned to Thomas. His face held a bit of amusement, a slight smirk on his lips.

“Ah, Hercules, right?” Thomas laughed. James chuckled along with him 

“Yeah, he asked him out to Club Raven and when Hercules invited us he suggested inviting you and Alexander,” James laid a hand on Thomas’s desk and put his weight on it.

“Ah, I see,” Thomas giggled to himself like he knew something James didn’t.

“What?” James asked, craning his neck a bit to see Thomas’s expression.

“You know about Laf’s little, uh, crush?” Thomas looked over at James with a rosy expression.

“Yeah.”

“I think he’s trying to sidetrack you two so he can lay down the moves on Hercules or whatever,” Thomas snickered. 

“Ha, nice,” James shook his head and scoffed. Thomas laughed at this.

“Hey, can I ask you. Does Hercules actually like Laf back, or is Laf just swinging in the dark?” Thomas asked, rolling his head towards James. James thought for a moment.

“I don’t think so, I think Hercules likes him back,” James answers. Thomas nods and smiles.

“Good, Laf is trying really hard,” Thomas smiles down at the floor. Silence fell between the two of them. 

“So can we talk about that person that’s goofing up Alexander and your relationship?” James asked, looking Thomas in the eye. 

“I really don’t want to talk about this,” Thomas raises his eyebrows. James furrows his brow.

“Do they work here?” James asks. Thomas’s face went red a little. A childish smirk spread across his face. “They do! Who is it? Angelica? No, no you two hate each other. Is it John?” James asked, he held his hand up to his chin.

“What? No, why would you even think that?” Thomas sighed, pushing his hand against his forehead. 

“I don’t know,” James chuckled. Thomas looked over at James, studying his face. James looked back at Thomas and tried to figure out what he was thinking. 

“Thomas. My room, now,” Angelica’s voice blared over the pager. Thomas sighed deeply and pushed off of his desk.

“See you later, James,” Thomas groaned as he left the office and walked the other way.

\-------

“James! Over here!” John called from a table at the club. James turned and waved. He started to make his way over there.

“Hey guys,” James smiles as he plops down in the seat between Hercules and John.

“Bonsoir James,” Lafayette beamed from his seat across from Hercules. James chuckled a bit.

“Hi,” Alexander said absently, not even looking up from his drink.

“Hey, Maddy,” Thomas greeted raising his hand to say ‘hello’. Alexander looks up with a wounded expression, but quickly looks back down to his drink.

“Hey,” James waves. A waiter came by and asked James what he was going to drink and James orders his alcohol. Lafayette already seemed pretty drunk, so did Thomas and John. Alex and Hercules seemed a bit drunk but not too bad yet. The waiter came back with James’s drink.

“Hercules,” Lafayette sing songed. “Come dance with me!” Lafayette pulls Hercules up from his chair and interlaced their fingers.

“Haha, alright!” Hercules giggled, pulling Lafayette towards the crowd of people on the dance floor. James looks over at Thomas and mouths ‘ _ I told you _ ’. Thomas laughs and nods. James takes a drink of his alcohol and listens to John babbling. 

“John! Alex! Thomas! James! Come out here and dance!” Hercules called from the floor. Alexander laughed and got up. He started making his way to the dance floor and John looked over at James with hopeful eyes. 

“Go!” James smiled eagerly. John got up and quickly looked back at James, then catches up with Alex and they make their way to the crowd. Thomas started to get up but James reaches out and grabs his wrist.  _ Alexander would totally ignore John if Thomas went _ .

“Let John have a chance,” James mumbled. Thomas looked down at James with a surprise look.

“What?” Thomas laughs, turning back to James. James looks out to the dance floor, seeing John dancing drunkenly.

“John  _ really _ likes Alexander, and if you go out there Alexander would totally ignore John. So please, just sit back down,” James turned his eyes back up to Thomas.

“But I wouldn’t dance with him. I’m interested in someone else,” Thomas raises an eyebrow.

“I know, but Alexander likes you,” James looks Thomas straight in the eyes, trying to explain to him what James was trying to do. Thomas sighed then sits down into his chair. James let go of Thomas’s wrist and took another drink of his beer.

“So John likes Alex? Who would’ve thought,” Thomas laughs as he finishes off his drink and looking over to where the four of them were dancing.

“Definitely not me,” James chuckles. James takes a big swig of his drink. “Do you think John and Alexander could be a thing?” James asks over the rim of his glass.

“I’m not sure,” Thomas looks back to James, “Alex can be pretty unpredictable.” James nodded slowly.

“I just hope he doesn’t end up getting hurt,” James sighed, taking another big drink of his beer. “I don’t understand why he’d go for him,” James shakes his head. 

“I don’t know,” Thomas shrugs, taking another glass from a waiter. James nods and looks past Thomas to the dance floor. 

“You seem a lot calmer than you usually are,” Thomas laughs. Thomas seemed really drunk and his speech was slurring only the tiniest bit.

“Thanks,” James laughs. James was getting pretty drunk too now. 

“I want to know, who is that person we were talking about earlier?” James leans across the table and shields his mouth from the rest of the bar. Thomas laughs and looks away from James. “Come on tell me,” James laughs.

“I’m too sober for this,” Thomas smirks as he takes a sip from his drink.

“Fine,” James giggles, “Get this man another drink!” 

\---------

“No way!” James slurs. Thomas laughs loudly.

“It’s true!” Thomas beamed, “I was all like ‘I’m too gay for this’” They both laugh and Thomas slams a hand down on the table.

“You know, it’s nice to see you laugh, Maddy,” Thomas points out. James giggles lightly.

“Oh yeah?” James smiles. Thomas nods. “And how did you find out about Maddy?” James eyes Thomas.

“When you were sick I was snooping through your stuff and saw it written on a photo,” Thomas shrugs with a bid drunken smile.

“Oh God, don’t tell me,” James laughed, “The bathtub one?” 

“Yep.”

“Ah, jeez, that’s the worst one!” James laughs and covers his face with his hands.

“I thought it was cute!” Thomas smiles. James shook his head. Silence fell in the air again.

“So are you drunk enough to tell me who you’re interested in?” James asks, leaning into the table. 

“Well,” Thomas smirks, “The person I’m actually interested is you” Thomas giggles as he points to James. 

“Haha, are you messing with me?” James laughs. Thomas shakes his head with a dumb smile.

“Nope,” Thomas laughs.

“You’re drunk out of your mind, Thomas,” James waves his hand dismissively.

“Sure whatever,” Thomas laughs half-heartedly. Thomas looks back to the dancing crowd.

“We should dance!” Thomas giggles. James laughs.

“Come on!” Thomas gets up from his seat but staggers around and catches himself on the table. “Awh, fuck,” Thomas curses as he holds his head.

“Come on, we should get you home, you’re getting too drunk,” James sighs as he slips under Thomas’s arm.

“Come one, we should dance first!” Thomas tries to pull James towards the dance floor.

“I’m going to be a killjoy and say we go,” James laughs as he pulls Thomas towards the exit.

“Then can you at least walk me home?” Thomas asked with puppy-dog eyes. 

“I don’t see why not,” James giggles as they step out into the cool night. “Which way do you live?” James asks as he resituates Thomas on his shoulder.

“I live down there, one 5th street,” Thomas points to their right. James nods and starts to walk Thomas that way.

\----------

“It’s down this street?” James asks as he looks around at the expensive looking houses lining the street.

“Yep it’s coming up,” Thomas points with his free hand. 

“Fucking rich people,” James sighed as they walked past another small fountain on someone’s front lawn.

“Oh here it is!” Thomas slipped out from under James’s arm and poses in front of his house, “Monticello! My home!” The house has that old colonial look to it with red brick and white marble slabs on the roof. 

“Oh god, it’s so big,” James whispered. Thomas laughed.

“That’s what he said,” Thomas smirks playfully.

“Shut the fuck up,” James scoffs as he whacks Thomas on the arm.

“Here, now I have to show you the inside!” Thomas smiled, pulling James up his walk way. “It looks bigger on the inside,” Thomas explains as he unlocks the door. They walk in and the house smells like Old Spice and money. 

“This smells like how I imagine Richy Rich smells,” James stares blankly at the big house.

“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” Thomas laughs. “Here, follow me,” Thomas motions for James to follow. They walk into the next room in the house and end up in the living room. The inside of the house was a lot more modern than the outside. James sunk back into the plushy couch.  _ Wow, this is comfortable, I could fall asleep _ , James thought as he yawned. 

“Isn’t it a nice coach?” Thomas giggled and laid back onto the couch with James. James closed his eyes and nodded.

“I’ve crashed on this coach so many times,” Thomas laughed with a sleepy tone. James smiled and felt himself drifting off to sleep.

“I’m glad today’s Friday, I won’t have to go to work with a massive hang over,” Thomas blabbers. 

“Friday’s are always my fav-”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also also thank you guys so much for all of the nice comments and kudos!! Navi and I are still in shock about the amount of comments and kudos we have!  
> -Hest


	10. Drunken Kisses and Macarons

Thomas leaned, in kissing James. James leaned in kissing back, his brain felt fried and his body didn’t know how to react.  _ What? _ The broke apart both out of breath, a light blush on each of their faces. James could feel how hard his heart was beating, the sound was up in his ears.  _ Am I allowed to do this with my boss? _ Thomas starts kissing down James’s jawline and continues down his neck, leaving hickeys along his collarbone.  _ Shoot, how am I going to cover those up?  _ James pushes against Thomas’s chest lightly. 

“T-thomas, hold on,” James breathes. Thomas was still hovering near James’s collar.

“What is it mon amour,” Thomas smirked, moving up towards James’s lips. 

“I’m sorry, Thomas I can’t. We are both too drunk for this,” James looked down at his hands.  _ If we’re going to do this I want to be sober for it.  _ James peaks up at Thomas, his eyes look serious and tired. It unexpectedly took the breath out of James’s chest.

“Sorry, uh,” Thomas leans back and looks off, “Get some rest.” Thomas gets off the couch and walks to the door. James sits still in his seat. He hears the door click behind Thomas and he relaxes ever so slightly. James lays into the couch with a dazed expression. 

\------

James sits up sleepily and rubs his eyes. The smell of black coffee and pancakes fills the room. He pushes himself up on his elbow and looks around. He’s dazed for a moment when he doesn’t remember the room. James gets up slowly. 

“Oh, James? Are you awake?” Thomas pokes his head in through the door. A sudden pang of fear bolts through James’s body.  _ Did my drunk ass hook up with my boss? _ Alarm bells start to sound in his head. But immediately after he remembers James pushing Thomas off of him, which doesn’t make him feel any better.

“Uh, y-yeah I am,” James didn’t look Thomas in the eyes. 

“Cool, here, come eat breakfast with me,” Thomas motions for James. James looks to his phone on the couch, then back at Thomas.

“Al-alright,” James stutters. He stands up but is instantly hit with nausea and a pounding headache. 

“Fuck,” James staggers and catches himself on the armrest of the couch. He could hear Thomas chuckle from the door.

“It’s good to see I’m not the only hungover one,” Thomas laughs, walking over to James. Thomas was in a loose Metallica tank top and navy blue boxers.  _ Not gonna lie, it looks good on him _ , James thought absently. 

“Yeah, thanks for finding enjoyment out of my suffering,” James sighed as he balanced himself again. 

“Aw, so cold Babe,” Thomas smirked from the other side of the coffee table. James’s head whipped up at Thomas, he could feel his face turning slightly red.

“Is this about the thing on the couch last night, because I’m re-.”

“What happened on the couch?” Thomas chuckled. James squints at Thomas.

“You don’t remember?” James asked. He fully expected Thomas to start cackling and say he was joking. 

“Should I?” Thomas raises a worried eyebrow at James. James slumps back against the coach and places his palm on his forehead.  _ Fuck, I knew this was going to happen. _

“Crap,” James mumbled to himself. Thomas cocked his head to the side. 

“You can tell me if it really bothers you that much,” Thomas tried to smile. James shook his head.

“It’s not worth telling you,” James sighs and looks off, out the window. A few birds fly past the window. 

“What do you mean? Wait is this about me, uh,” Thomas looks off and rubs the back of his neck, “confessing to you?” James looks back to Thomas.  _ At least he remembers something _ .

“Well, that’s not what I was talking about,” James watched Thomas’s weary face. It’s odd seeing someone as forward and shameless as Thomas get bashful. “But I’m glad you remember that.”

“Glad?” Thomas looks up hopefully. His eyebrows shoot up and it makes James laugh. Thomas smiles with a wide grin at James. “I’m going to take that as a good thing,” Thomas relaxes out a bit. 

“Well, do you want to go and get some breakfast?” Thomas motions towards the door he came from.

“Yeah, what’d you make?” James asks. Following Thomas as he weaves around the expensive looking furniture.

“Pancakes!” Thomas grins.  _ It’s nice to see his actual smile, not his dumb smirk _ , James thinks. He chuckles in response. Thomas opens the door to his kitchen/dining room to a big Saint Bernard gobbling up the pancakes on the plate. Thomas’s jaw drops.

“BENNY!! BAD BOY!!” Thomas runs and starts to pull the dog off by his stomach. Benny falls back and lands on Thomas’s stomach. Benny pants happily and starts licking Thomas’s face. James chuckles off to the side of the room. Benny’s big head turns to James and he pads over to him. He sits down at James’s feet and tilts his head. 

“Aw, you’re just a big bucket of fur aren’t you?” James happily pets Benny. Benny lays down and rolls over for James to rub his tummy. 

“Damn it,” Thomas sighs by the counter. James looks up, still petting the big fluffy dog.

“Did he eat all of them?” James asks. Thomas nods and shows him the empty plate. James chuckles and looks down to Benny.

“What a big glutton, oh yeah, you’re a bottomless pit, aren’t you?” James said in a high voice. He could hear Thomas chuckle.

“Do you just want to go out and grab something to eat?” Thomas pushes back his hair and places the plate in the sink.

“Sure,” James stands up and looks down at his shirt. “But I don’t have anything to change into,” James looks up at Thomas.

“You can borrow some of my clothes,” Thomas shrugs, walking into the living room with James following quickly behind. 

“Is that really okay?” James asks smalley.  _ Is that a weird thing to do? Sharing your boss’s clothes?,  _ James thinks,  _ Well when you put it that way… _ James shakes his head. 

“Yeah, follow me I’ll show you were the closet is,” Thomas walks through another door and walks down a long hallway. Thomas opens another door and walks in.  _ Shit, this is his bedroom _ , James head yelled. A sudden flash of nervousness fell on James. 

“Here,” Thomas threw open a big sliding door and showed a neatly organized closet. James brain fried so he didn’t respond, he just absently looked over the closet.

“Oh! You should wear this!” Thomas pulled out a small leather jacket much smaller than Thomas, “This was from like highschool, but you can wear it.” James took the coat and folded it over his arm.

“Here, wear these things two, this’d all look good together,” Thomas chose all of James’s outfit. Which is probably good because James’s brain was so fried he might not even be able to choose what he wanted to wear.

“You can go to the bathroom and change,” Thomas pointed towards his door and briefly gave directions. “I’ll be changing in here, so sit in the hallway until I’m done. Or, if you want to come in, you totally can,” Thomas teased.

“Shameless,” James rolled his eyes with a small smirk on his face as he leaves the room. James takes Thomas’s directions and gets to the bathroom. James throws on all of the clothes Thomas picked out and looks in the mirror. Thomas gave him a white t-shirt, a big, big dusty purple flannel, and some black jeans. Together it looked oddly good on James.  _ Jesus, it’s a miracle _ . James folds his clothes up in a neat pile and sets them in the living room, pocketing his phone in the process. James makes his way back to the hallway and continues to wait. 

James’s eyes wander and land on the picture on the walls. There were sunny pictures of just him and (assumingly) his mom, and some of just him and (assumingly) his father. His mother looked nothing like him, besides the big crazy hair. His father looked just like him but with more wrinkles and grey hairs. Thomas’s door clicks open and James turns. 

Thomas adjusts the hem of his sleeve. He’s wearing a dark blue sweater, khakis, and a light grey trench coat. Thomas looks up at James and smirks. James chuckles at Thomas’s expression.

“Lookin’ good Maddy,” Thomas quickly looks James up and down. 

“Not looking too shabby yourself, Thomas,” James chuckles. He looks back up at the pictures. “Is this your mom and dad?” James points to a nicely framed picture of his parents.

“No, stepmom,” Thomas walks to the door and opens it, “Here, let’s go to this fancy French cafe down a few blocks,” Thomas suggests as James exits the door. 

“I’m up for that,” James smiles.

\------

“This cafe is so cute,” James smiles as they approach the small building. It’s a tan-brick building with a red and white striped awning. 

“The food here is good too, luckily,” Thomas smiles as he opens a wrought iron gate and follows James in. 

“That’s good,” James remarks looking around at the potted plants and shrubbery dispersed in the sitting area. Petite black tables with red umbrellas are put around the sitting area. They enter the shop and it looks exactly how James expected it to.

“Hello, could we get a table?” Thomas asks the lady at the front desk. The woman smiles and nods, making her tight ponytail bounce. “Inside or outside?” she asks as she gathers two menus into her arms. Thomas looks over for James’s opinion.

“The weather’s nice outside, so why not?” James says, looking out the big window. Thomas nods and tells the woman they’d like an outside table. 

“Great, follow me!” the lady says with her practiced friendliness. They follow her out to one of the open tables and hands them both menus. 

“Your complimentary croissants will be with you in a moment,” the woman smiles as she walks away.

“Complimentary croissant?” James asks in a whisper. 

“Yeah,” Thomas chuckles. James raises his eyebrows and starts to look through his menu. A lot of these he didn’t know, and most of the descriptions didn’t help.

“How about some macaroons to start off with? I like the cake variety, which do you think sounds appetizing?” Thomas asks without stuttering or looking up from his menu. James flips to the macaroons section of the menu and skims through it. The cake variety has four red velvet, four chocolate, and four vanilla macaroons. 

“That sounds good to me,” James answers. Then he looks down to the price.  _ Shit _ .

“I’ll order them right now,” Thomas says as the woman walks up with two small plates with golden brown croissants on them. She sets them down and fishes out her order book.

“Would you like a few minutes or would you like to order now?” the woman asks politely. 

“No, we’ll order now, could we get macaroons, the cake variety?” Thomas orders. The woman scribbles it down on her notebook. 

“Is that all for now, you will be able to order later if you say no. That question always seems to confuse the customers,” the waitress laughs. 

“I’m sure, but we will be ordering later,” Thomas smiles politely. The girl nods quickly and scurries off with their order. 

“You had a lot of pictures of you dad, I’m assuming, and your stepmom? Do you talk to your family a lot?” James asks, taking a bite of his flaky croissant.

“I talk to my dad and stepmom a lot, yeah,” Thomas shrugs. James expects more, but Thomas doesn’t say anything.

“What’re they like?” James presses. 

“My dad is a good guy, he supported me through a lot of stuff. Like when I came out as bi, and he even supported me when I told him I was going to college in France. My stepmom is pretty nice, she’s not exactly that stand out of a person, but once you get to know her she’s sweet,” Thomas takes a drink of the free water that had appeared one of the times the waitress was there.

“What about your mom? I didn’t see any pictures of her,” James stirred the little red straw in the glass. 

“Oh,” Thomas said coldly. James looked up and was surprised to see a tight expression. “She wasn’t in a lot of my life,” Thomas shrugs. James didn’t say anything more, but filed it away in a little filing cabinet in his head labeled ‘ _ Questions to Ask Later _ ’.

“Here’s your macaroons sirs,” the waitress says, placing a white plate onto the table. The red velvet macaroons were a rich red with white filling, while the vanilla were white on white, and the chocolate were a warm chocolaty brown on dark brown. 

“Open your mouth,” Thomas commands, picking up a chocolate macaroon.

“What?” James asks with a hard tone.

“Don’t be bashful, open your mouth, I’m just going to feed you a macaroon,” Thomas sighs and shakes his head.

“But that’s really embarrassing,” James looks around, praying no one from work had seen them.

“I let you stay over at my house, let you borrow my clothes, and I’m paying for this bill, the least you could do is this,” Thomas smirked, they both knew Thomas had a point. James sighed and opened his mouth. 

“Thank you,” Thomas smiled with a slight chuckle. He leans in and holds a hand under the macaroon. James can feel his face getting redder and his patience wearing thinner each second longer it takes. Finally Thomas feeds James the macaroon.  _ It feels a lot more embarrassing than it looks _ , James thinks as he chews on it. 

“Wow! This is good,” James can’t masks his delight with the chocolatey flavor. 

“I know!” Thomas smirks. James and Thomas continue to snack on the pastries until the waitress comes back.

“What would you like now?” she asks, holding her pen up carefully. James looks down to his menu and spots the word ‘ _ crepes _ ’.  _ At least I actually know what that is _ , James thinks.

“Could I have a crepe?” James asks. 

“Would you like strawberry, blueberry, or wild berry?” the woman asks, scribbling something down on her sheet.

“I’ll have strawberry,” James quickly glances over at Thomas. 

“Alright, and you sir?”

“I’ll have two eclairs,” Thomas orders. The woman nods and scribbles it down on her sheet. She nods with a smile and hurries away.

“I like the red velvet macaroons,” Thomas says as he picks up the last one.

“I like the chocolate ones,” James mentions. Thomas nods and licks his fingers. James and Thomas talk until the waitress comes back with two plates. She sets the eclair in front of Thomas, and sets the crepe in front of James. James looks over to Thomas’s plate, there’s two long pastries with chocolate on top and white frosting sticking out of one the sides. James’s crepe looks delectable, it looks like a thin pancake wrapped around whipped cream and strawberries, all topped off with a chocolate drizzle and powdered sugar.

“This looks like art,” James says, craning his neck to see the whole thing.

“You sound like you’ve never had a crepe,” Thomas laughs.

“I haven’t,” James looks up at Thomas, “but I wish I had.”

“When I was in France I ate one every morning,” Thomas smiles as he takes a bit from his eclair.

“You were France? What for?” James asks, taking a careful bite of the crepe. 

“I went there for college initially, but ended up staying there a little longer,” Thomas explains.

“That’s actually really cool,” James takes another bite of his crepe, but it falls apart in his hands and falls onto the plate. James hears a small snicker from Thomas.

“Thanks, it wasn’t that big of a deal,” Thomas shrugs nonchalantly. 

“You’ve lived a pretty good life,” James mutters with a slight smirk. Thomas’s face falls for a split second.

“Life’s not all that great, it never is,” Thomas adjusts the neckline of his shirt. James wanted to ask him what he meant, but didn't press it. 

“So, did anyone text you last night about John and Alex?” Thomas smirks. James flips his head up.

“What?” James asks with a growing grin.

“Well, according to the text I got from Laf, they went home together,” Thomas said opening his phone and showing James the text. James looked at the screen and starts to laugh.

“Yes, you go John!” James laughs. Thomas chuckles and puts his phone away. “Do you think they hooked up?” James leans in and whispers.

“Knowing Alex and his background, yeah, definitely,” Thomas smirks. This makes James lean back in his chair and laugh. 

“Oh God, that is hilarious,” James laughs. Thomas nods.

“Hopefully Alex doesn’t only see it as a one night stand,” Thomas points out. It causes James to stop laughing.

“Oh shit, you’re right,” James says, putting his hand up to his chin. “Poor John,” James mutters. 

“Yeah,” Thomas nods as he finishes off the last of his eclair. James finishes his crepe and they pay their bill and leave.

“Do you want to go back to my house?” Thomas asks as he opens the gate again.

“I’ll need to,” James raises his eyebrows, “I left a bunch of my clothes there.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot,” Thomas chuckles, scratching his cheek.

\--------

“She said that to your face?” James asks, amazed.

“Yeah! I was like ‘seriously?’,” Thomas laughs. They walk into the house and go to the living room. 

“I love your couch, it’s so comfortable,” James sighs happily as he lays back into it Thomas settles in next to James.

“This is off topic, but did we  _ do it _ last night?” Thomas asks nervously. James looks at Thomas with a confused look.

“No,” James phrases it like a question.

“Oh thank God, I would’ve been so mad if that’s what I forgot,” Thomas leans his head back in relief.  _ I actually have no idea how to respond to this,  _ James thought.

“Oh?” James said with a nervous smile. 

“C-can I change the subject to?” James asks with a serious expression. Thomas looks a bit thrown off by this.

“Sure?” Thomas answered nervously.

“Can you tell me more about your family?” James asks. Thomas takes a deep breath in and looks at the door on the other side of the room. He was probably thinking of ways to get out of the room. “I mean you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I’d really like to know,” James added quickly.

“No, no it’s fine,” Thomas smiled a bit. James sat up straighter and watched as Thomas looked at his hands.

“Well, my parents had me out of wedlock. Well if you can call it that, they were divorced by the time I was born so I was just sent off with my Mom. She somehow got full custody of me. My mom, she was, she was an abusive asshole,” Thomas looked far off and dazed.

“Shit,” James muttered.

“When I was younger she would emotionally, physically, and verbally abuse me. I have this one distinct memory of me doing nothing in the living room and all of the sudden my mom storming in, screaming and throwing a plate at me,” Thomas looked up at the ceiling, “But luckily one of my teachers started noticing my bruises and cuts.” James reaches over and places a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. Thomas comes back to reality a bit and looks at his hand. He smiles a bit.

“She ended up calling child protective services on my mom and I was taken out of my house and brought to my dad’s house. I remember walking into his house for the first time and him just scooping me up in his arms and crying. Mind you I was in high school so it was like him picking up a tree,” Thomas smiles weakly, “That was when I had to move, my dad didn’t want to live in the same city as my mom, even if she was in jail. So he took me, and brought me to this town. I started college in France and my dad, bless his heart, moved with me. He ended up finding a woman in France and marrying her. I moved back here for work, and my dad still lives in France.” Thomas was looking down, something like relief was painted across his face. 

“Well, that’s it, I guess,” Thomas shrugs. James pulls Thomas into a hug. Thomas was cold. And tall, it was an awkward type of hug, with james having to reach across the couch to hug Thomas.

“That fucking blows, I’m sorry,” James mumbles into Thomas’s ear. James can feel Thomas take a deep breath. He smelt like vanilla, maybe it was from the cafe, but either way it smelt nice.

“Thanks,” Thomas whispers, snuggling his nose into the crook of James’s neck. James nods.  _ I could stay like this for a looooong time _ , James thinks absently. His brain took a hold of his body once the hug had been sustained for a moment too long and pulled away softly. Thomas had a surprised look on his face and was watching James with careful eyes. 

“Thanks,” Thomas repeats, smiling smalley at James.

“No problem, really.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey again! Navi and I hope you guys like this fluffy chapter! I can say that I was snickering the entire time I was writing the fluff. Also, again, we can't thank you guys enough for all of the super duper sweet comments! We hope you have a nice day!  
> -Hest


	11. Price Guns and Kleenex

_ Achoo _ ! 

James rubs his nose and stretches at his desk.  _ Maybe I’m getting sick again? But it is allergy season, so it’s more likely it’s that... _ Thomas opens the door to the hallway and pokes his head out. 

“Are you okay? You’re not sick again, are you?” Thomas asks. James shakes his head and sniffles again. “You sound sick,” Thomas raises a skeptical eyebrow.

“Thanks, but I’m pretty sure it’s just allergies,” James shrugs. For some reason Thomas’s enhanced worry since he confessed makes James oddly happy. 

“Do you just need some tissues?” Thomas steps out into the hallway and leans against James’s desk.

“Probably,” James shrugs.  _ I’ve been sneezing a lot the past few days, how did you just notice this? _ James thinks to himself. 

_ Achoo! _

James holds his elbow up to his nose and sniffles. 

“Here,” Thomas says as he shuffles through his purse. James squints at Thomas,  _ what is wrong with this guy.  _ Thomas pulls out a box of tissues and hands them to James. James stares at the colorful box of Kleenex in his hands. 

“Where the fuck did you get this?” James looks up at Thomas with a dumbfounded look.

“My satchel,” Thomas explains as he pulls out another box of Kleenex. Thomas acts like this is a totally normal thing, yet it really isn’t. 

“Is that all that’s in there?” James asks, taking the other box and holding it up. 

“Pretty much, oh and cough drops,” Thomas shrugs as he proceeds to dumb about four more boxes of Kleenex on the desk. James’s eyes dart around to the other boxes and looks back up at Thomas, with his jaw hanging open.  _ What is wrong with this guy? _ James asks himself. 

“Why?” James asks, motioning to all of the unopened boxes. 

“Well you’re always sneezing or coughing so I thought I’d bring these to help,” Thomas answered nonchalantly. James just stares at Thomas like he was an idiot. A small grin slowly spread across James’s face and he burst out laughing. It was his refreshing laugh, not one of his practiced forced laughs. 

“Thanks? I guess,” James looks back up at Thomas with the remnants of his smile. Thomas’s eyebrows were raised and the smallest smile was on his lips.

“You know, you should laugh like that more,” Thomas finally said. James smiled softly and shook his head.

“Not many bosses would tell their assistants the equivalent of a cat call,” James rebutted. Thomas smirks, which James has come to learn was either a good or bad thing, there was never a grey area.

“Not many bosses would fall in love with their assistants either but here we are,” Thomas mumbles, so quiet James just barely hears it. James freezes when Thomas says ‘love’, it’s not a word that should be taken lightly. It was a commitment, especially for someone like James. James awkwardly starts stacking the Kleenex boxes up.

“Anyways, can you grab me some coffee? I’ll just take black today, I wasn’t sleeping well last night,” Thomas rubs his temples and makes a shooing gesture with his hands. 

“Sure thing,” James sighs as he stacks the last of the boxes up. Thomas walked back into his office and James starts walking down to the break room. The word ‘love’ sounds over and over again in James’s mind. The word has a background with James. James opens the door to the break room and sees John sitting at one of the tables with a bored expression, bouncing his pen up and down on it. 

“Do you do actual work?” James jokes as he starts the coffee pot. John seems to jump a bit and looks over James. He laughs nervously and rubs the back of his neck. 

“Yeah, I’ve just been sidetracked lately,” John laughs nervously. James looks back at him and thinks for a second, trying to figure out how to put what he wants to say.

“Is it,” James watches the drops of coffee, “Is it Alex? I heard about last Friday.” James watches as John’s shoulders slump down and he sighs deeply. 

“Fuck, did Laf tell everybody?” John mutters. James smiles weakly, trying to show him his sympathy. 

“Do you want to talk about?” James asks, sitting into the chair next to John. 

“I mean, sure,” John shrugs. James smiled a bit and laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

“So, how was it?” James half whispers. He’s never had to talk about one-night stands with his friends, this is a long awaited first for James. 

“Fucking great,” John covers his face with his palms and slams his elbows on the table. James cocks his head at John’s horrid reaction.

“Isn’t that a  _ good _ thing?” James asks, a bit confused. John looks up and gives James a confused look.

“You’ve never hooked up with a crush, have you?” John asks skeptically.

James shakes his head, “I can’t say I have.” John shakes his head and scoffs.

“Then count yourself lucky,” John looks down at the table and starts drawing circles on it. “And to answer your question, no, it’s a bad thing. It’d probably be better lif was terrible at sex,” John sighs and plops his head on the table, covering his arms with his head. James tries to think of a way to make John feel any better.

“Okay, look at it this way, if he hooked up with you, he must find you some what appealing,” James shrugs.  _ I tried, you can’t blame me for that _ , James decided.

“But you don’t have to love someone to have sex with them,” John sighed, looking up from the table. “You just have to be fucking wasted like he was,” John laments. Something about the heartbroken expression on John’s face really made James feel for him. James’s pocket buzzes

**Bring me my coffee, errand boy** . James sighed at the phone, rolling his eyes. Texting became a new thing between James and Thomas. It was nice at times, getting nice compliments and all, but the cons outweighed the pros.

**Be right there** , James texted back, standing up from his chair. 

“I have to go and get the monster’s coffee, but can we talk more about this later?” James asks, pouring the coffee into a styrofoam cup.

“Yeah,” John nodded, pulling out the pen again. James pushed the lid onto the cup and makes his way out of the room.

“Bye John,” James calls. 

“Bye James.”

James makes his way back to Thomas’s room. He knocks then, without response, opens the door to Thomas throwing a small ball in the air. 

“Thanks for knocking?” Thomas rolls his eyes sarcastically. James chuckles and shrugs.

“Here’s your coffee,” James says, handing the cup. 

“Thanks Maddy,” Thomas mumbles, taking a big gulp of the hot coffee.

“Oh shit!” Thomas yells, immediately regretting  his decision. James chuckles, enjoying the pain on Thomas’s face.

“Maybe if you weren’t so stupid you’d remember I just came from the break room, not the Starbucks all the way down town,” James smirks. Thomas glares at James.

“At least I don’t wear stupid ties, James,” Thomas points a long finger at James’s tie.

“Did you just call my tie stupid?” James gasps.  _ This is so stupid _ , James thinks.

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to call,” Thomas slowly reaches into one of his drawers, “THE FASHION POLICE!” Thomas pulls out a price gun and jumps into a Charlie’s Angels pose.

“Learn how to match your tie with the rest of your outfit Honey,” Thomas says in a sassy voice, shaking his head back and forth. James squints at Thomas.

“Excuse me, at least I don’t wear fuschia,” James rolls his eyes. Thomas gasps and steps back.

“Excuse you, it’s MAGENTA, not fuchsia you uncultured swine,” Thomas points out, waggling his price gun at James. 

“Why don’t you stop acting like a fucking five year old and put your price gun away,” James argues back. 

“Oh, says the one that’s like five inches tall,” Thomas leans down and sticks his tongue out at James. James scoffs and turns around, slamming into the glass door. 

“Oh shoot,” James groans, putting a hand up to his face. 

“Oh! Maddy! Are you okay?” Thomas hurries over and cranes his neck to check James’s face. The crash made James’s eyes tear up from the pain.

“Yeah, no I’m fine,” James looks at Thomas. 

“Okay, good, that looked painful,” Thomas said, brushing imaginary lint off of James’s shoulder.

“I smushed my nose, but other than that I’m fine,” James says, rubbing his nose again. Thomas nods and they stand in silence for a few seconds. Until Thomas bursts out laughing, shortly followed by James. 

“That was  _ so _ stupid,” James giggles.

“I know,” Thomas agrees. 

“Why do you even have a price gun?” James asks, still a bit of laughter carried over in his voice.

“I think I bought it at some garage sale,” Thomas shrugs. James laughs again.

“So you just brought it to work?” James asks with a big smile.

“I mean, duh, where else do you take it?” Thomas shrugs happily. 

“You have a point, I guess,” James smiles. 

“ I need to go and print some things, do you want to come?” Thomas asks, opening the door.

“Sure, I have nothing else to do,” James shrugs. Thomas nods and they start making their way down to the copier room.

“Did you already finish all of that work I set out for you?” Thomas asks skeptically. 

“Yeah, I’m a fast worker,” James nods. Thomas nods his head, mouthing ‘ _ wow’ _ .

“By the way, what kind of music are you into?” Thomas asks, opening the door to the copier room. 

“Why?” James asks, dodging under Thomas’s arm into the room.

“Research,” Thomas responds simply. James raises his eyebrow as he watches Thomas get onto the big boxy computer sitting on a desk on one the walls.

“Well, I don’t really listen to music,” James shrugs. Thomas stops and looks over at James with a confused look.

“You don’t listen to  _ any _ music? Not even in the car?” Thomas squints at james, resuming what he was doing.

“I just drive to work and that’s it,” James shrugs.

“No way! You know what,” Thomas raises an eyebrow and looks James up and down, “I’m going to make you a playlist for you to listen to.” James scoffs playfully.

“Like burn it on a disc?” James smiles. Thomas smiles back and nods. “Then what are you going to put on it?” James walks behind Thomas and looks over his shoulder. He’s on a Google Docs printing a long wordy message out. 

“My kind of music,” Thomas smirks, “Classic Rock, the best.”

“You’re a classic rock kind of person?” James asks skeptically. Thomas nods and laughs, stepping away from the computer and towards the printer.

“Queen, Led Zeppelin, Guns N’ Roses, AC/DC, you name it, I’ve listened to it,” Thomas smirks as he hovers over the printer. 

“I would’ve judged you as a pop kind of person,” James shrugs. 

“Ew, no, have you heard their messages? All of those drugs and partying, I need songs without that,” Thomas laughs. 

“And classic rock doesn’t have that?” James teases.

“Well there are songs like that, but I’m talking songs like “Stairway to Heaven”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Hello, I Love You”,” Thomas smiles over his shoulder. 

“Okay,” James shakes his head and laughs. “Classic Rock, wow,” James repeats. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're so happy for 100 kudos! We literally can't thank you enough! Like this is mind-boggling to us! Also we there's going to a big development in the next chapter!


	12. Scandal on the Fourteenth Floor Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wowie

Chapter 12

Scandal on the Fourteenth Floor: Part 1

James sits at his computer playing Solitaire, humming a small melody. He has his earbuds in and is playing the playlist Thomas brought him morning. It was in a clear plastic case with  _ For Maddy, since you “don’t listen to music” _ written messily across the front flap. Since James actually lives in the 21st century the only CD player he had on hand was his computer, he had an excuse to procrastinate on his work. His office phone starts to ring, James looks at the caller ID:  **Angelica Schuyler** .  _ Angelica? What could she need from me?  _ He picks up the phone, twirling the swipral cord around his finger.

“Angelica?” 

“Yes! James, hi, sorry to bother you, but Alex is out for coffee and Thomas isn’t answering his phone. I need you to come over to my office. I would just come give them to you but I’m working on a few new cases, and if I stop now I’ll never finish,” Angelica lamented over the phone. James looks longingly at his game of Solitaire.  _ Shoot. _ James took a deep breath then continued the conversation.

“I can definitely come down, don’t worry about it! I’ll be there in a moment,” James answers hurriedly, pushing up from his chair as he talks.

“Alright, I’ll see you in a little while.”

“Yep,” James says as he hangs the phone onto the receiver. James starts to make his way down the hallway, waving to John who’s standing by the water cooler. 

“I need to talk to you later,” James says as he points at John. He solemnly nods in response. James continues his walk towards Angelica’s office. 

James pushes the door open as he walks into Angelica’s office. James immediately notices the trash can filled to the brim with Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy, granola bars wrappers, and crumpled up papers. 

“Hi, James. The papers I need you to give Thomas, are right h-,” Angelica looks blankly at her desk. She sweeps her eyes over the stacks upon stacks of papers on her desk. She stands up and starts to shuffle through the papers on her counter, which is filled with even more papers and a big fancy coffee pot. “Here! These are the ones,” Angelica says, triumphantly holding up the papers. James takes them and watches as Angelica fills her coffee mug up again.

“Angelica, are you- are you alright?” James asks with a concerned tone.  _ She’s acting like drunk monkey. _

“Well for starters, this coffee was made with Red Bull instead of water and then I dumped three bottles of 5-hour energy in as a sweetener.,” Angelica motioned to her Keurig, “This is all because I only got an hour and eight minutes of sleep last night. This was due to Pip staying at my house, since it was Maria’s birthday and they wanted some alone time but we forgot Pip’s blankey and stuffed whale at home and their house is a little over thirty minutes from mine. So you can see my plight. I ended up staying up all night long until he crashed at five fifteen,” Angelica rubbed the bridge of her nose, making wide gestures the entire story. 

“Okay, well, sorry to hear about that,” James answers awkwardly. Angelica takes another long gulp of her coffee. James notices the cup is printed with “ **The World’s Okayest Boss** ” on it. James chuckles a bit, then proceeds to speed walk out of her office and down the hallway. He stops by John and holds his papers close to his chest.

“So what’d ya want to talk about?” John asks, swirling the water in his cup around.

“Well, firstly I’m obsessed with a playlist Thomas made for me,” James attempts to make small talk. John shakes his head.

“Oh, really? It’s good to see someone getting far with the person they like,” John sighs, taking a long, slow drink from his styrofoam cup.

“I don’t  _ like _ Thomas,” James objects.  _ Sure, bud _ , James’s involuntary voice yells. 

“Sounds fake, but okay,” John rolls his eyes. James scoffs and rolls his eyes back.

“Anyways, how the office slut doin’?” James asks sarcastically. John looks over at James and scrunches his nose.

“What? No,” John sighs, “ he’s not like that James,” John shakes his head defensively. 

“Sounds fake, but okay,” James rebuttals, then shakes his head at the looks John gives him. “But seriously, how that playing out?” James asks. John sighs loudly.

“It hasn’t gone anywhere since last Friday,” John says in a defeated tone. James places a reassuring hand on John’s shoulder.

“Tough through it, I guess that’s all I can say,” James shrugs. John scoffs and nods. “Well I’ll let you think this out,” James sighs and waves, leaving the cooler and passing the break room. 

“James! Herc and I have some news to tell you,” Lafayette calls from the break room’s doorway. James turns and smiles, walking back to the break room. Lafayette is beaming, he seems oddly different since just yesterday.

“You guys literally never do your work, do you?” James asks as he enters the cool break room. Hercules is sitting at a small round table, the one they have the tendency to fill everyday.

“Well I have an excuse, I work international cases so I don’t  _ do _ much around here,” Lafayette shrugs as he leans against the back of a chair.

“Whenever I’m at my cubicle I just end up playing Bejeweled all day, so either way I’m unproductive,” Hercules says, in his loud voice. James scoffs with a small smirk on his lips. 

James sighs, “So what did you guys want to tell me?” James asks as he hold the papers to his chest. Lafayette and Hercules exchange looks and smile.

“Well Herc and I are homosexual relationship,” Lafayette holds Hercules’s shoulders and smiles brightly. 

“Oh! Congrats! That’s great,” James smiles back. Hercules holds one of Lafayette’s hands and smiles up at him. 

“Thanks!” Hercules’s smile is so big that you can see his dimples and his eyes look squinted.

“Well I have to get these notes to Thomas, so see you guys later,” James waves and starts walking to door to the hallway.

“Bye!” Lafayette and Hercules say in unison as the door shuts behind  James. James starts to hum one of the songs on Thomas’s playlist as he walks back to Thomas’s office. James stops by his desk and checks that his game of Solitaire is still up. It is (luckily), and James straightens out the papers Angelica gave him. James grasps the handle to the office and opens the door. Still smiling and humming the little tune. 

“Thomas I have some papers for y-” James looks up from the papers in his hand to Thomas’s desk. His smile falls and he can feel his heart skip a beat as his brain registers what’s happening. Alex sits on Thomas’s desk with Thomas leaning over him both hands planted to the wooden desk. Alex’s hair is disheveled and not in it’s normal pony tail, but messy and loose, his head thrown back panting. James can hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, almost too loud to be able to hear anything else. Thomas arcs his toned body over Alex, pants noticeably loosened revealing his boxer briefs. Visible scratch marks can be seen trailing down his back. James’s heart sinks at the sight.

_ Why? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love doesn't discriminate between the y'all'd'ves and the yain'ts it takes and it takes and it takes.   
> -Navi


	13. Scandal on the Fourteenth Floor part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rawrXD

Chapter 13

The Scandal On the 14th Floor: Part 2

James drops the papers onto the floor. He was in a state of shock, his body refusing to move.  _ Get me out of here, I just want to leave _ , James’s mind pleads with an unseen force. Finally Thomas’s words break James out of his trance. 

“James! No, shit, this isn’t what it looks like.” Thomas stumbles away from the desk trying to pull his pants up. James’s mind was on autopilot and he couldn’t think, not for himself at least, he walked away closing the door quietly. As the door clicked behind him he sprinted to the elevator, the doors opened and he got in pressing the ground floor button. The office door opens back up and outcomes Thomas with a sloppily buttoned shirt, some visible hickeys, and his shoes in his hands. He runs for the elevator, pressing the ‘shut doors’ button when he gets in.  Lafayette, John, and Hercules look from where they were at the scene down the hallway. Lafayette notices Thomas running, half-dressed, down the hallway and his face curls with anger.

“Thomas, what the  _ fuck _ did you do?” Lafayette yells, just in time for the doors to the elevator to shut. James’s mind goes off of autopilot and he starts to process what just happened, trying to calm his racing heart by listening to the bing of the elevator. 

_ Why would he do that? What did I do? What did I do to deserve this? How could I be so idiotic that I thought I could trust him? Why didn’t I learn from high school?  _ James’s mind was racing as the elevator door dinged. He sprinted through the lobby trying to find the unused meeting room that he usually took naps in.  _ I need to get out of here before Thomas gets down here _ , James’s mind warned. 

“James wait!” Thomas yells as his elevator door dinged open.  _ Shit _ , James’s mind hissed. As he raced after him, the space between them closes.  _ Why wasn’t I in track when I was in high school? _ James’s mind asks. He tried to close and lock the door but Thomas was stronger than him. He pushed the door just enough to get himself in. 

“Thomas, get out,” James snarls, backing up slightly. Thomas was the last person he wanted to see right now, below even Alex.

“James, please just listen to me,” he says, moving closer. He’s pleading with James, his face is contorted from trying not to cry. 

“No, Thomas,” James crosses his arm admittedly. Thomas pushed back his hair and shook his head. James is shaking from anger, he was trying to control his voice. He knew if he started yelling it’d be an even bigger deal. He just wanted all of this to go away.

“James please it’s not what you think?” Thomas forces out, his voice is cracking. The tension of him trying not to cry puts a strain on his voice. James has no sympathy, not a drop.

“Was the time in senior year also not what I thought?” James hisses. Thomas’s face pulls into confusion. James scoffs at Thomas’s stupidity.

“What? What do you mean?” Thomas shakes his head. James smirks, not a flirty smirk, one that Disney villains give the hero when they think they’ve trapped them.

“I was your boyfriend your senior year! You would have been a junior but you skipped a grade and I was your boyfriend, I was a Freshman. Your last name used to be Randolph. You put cheesy love notes in my locker everyday. I am the James Madison you dated in high school. You cheated on me, you pushed some boy against the wall in the back of the library,” James’s tone was harsh and angry. James felt better than Thomas, like it was a guilty pleasure to be better than this douchebag. Thomas’s eyes widen at James’s story. He clasps a hand over his mouth and shakes his head, his eyes dropping to the floor

“James, I’m-” Thomas held out his hand to James, but he slapped it away. 

“Let me finish!” He yelled cutting off Thomas and silencing him. He took a deep breath and started talking again. Thomas looked scared, and sad, and confused. He looked like a lost puppy, imagine dog that’s been kicked one too many times and is being yelled at and you have Thomas’s expression.

“I trusted you. I thought you changed, I guess I thought wrong. I thought we had something again, I thought you actually cared about me. I was hoping that I would get to see that kid from my Freshman year who made my life worthwhile by shoving cheesy notes in my locker. I trusted you, I thought you liked me. I guess I’m just a fucking idiot! Why did you even bother toying with me? Was I just another assistant who you would fuck then dump after a few weeks? Well what did I expect? You  _ are  _ paid to lie,” James whispered the end of his statement, his voice shaking. Thomas looked helpless, his eyes were wide, and a his mouth hangs open. 

Thomas looks down with ashamed eyes. He looks back up and searches James’s face for something for him to say. 

“I knew it, Thomas you’re unbelievable,” James shook his head and pulled an annoyed hand down his face. “I should’ve known, I don’t know what I ever saw in you,” James watches Thomas with cold eyes. 

“You broke my heart twice. Congratulations, Thomas Jefferson, Con-fucking-grats,” James pushes past Thomas, making sure to ram his shoulder into him, and walks out the door. James peaked back as he walked away. Thomas was standing in the room, shoulders drooping. James walked quickly to Eliza’s counter and grabbed her wrist. She had earbuds in and were ripped out when James pulled her out from behind the counter. 

“James? What’s going on?” Eliza said as James pulled her down the lobby. James was hit with a wave of sadness and he couldn’t respond. He would start bawling in the lobby. James threw open the glass doors and walked outside, Eliza still asking what was happening. James pulled her behind a big dumpster, to the place people smoked. As James reached their destination he started to slow, feeling the tears starting to fill his eyes. James choked out a sob and tried to covering it by slapping a hand over his mouth. 

“James, what’s happening?” Eliza is still behind James and places a hand on his shaking shoulders. “You can tell me,” Eliza coos in a soft voice. James turns to Eliza.

“It’s Thomas,” James wipes as his eyes, refusing to shed another tear over Thomas. A look of realization crosses Eliza’s face.

“Oh, honey,” Eliza’s face changes to one of sadness. “What happened?” Eliza ran her hand up and down James’s back, trying to relax him. His mother used to do it to him, somehow it makes James feel better now. 

“I don’t  _ know _ how to explain it,” James removed his hands from his face and looked down at them.

“Just tell me everything you can,” Eliza’s voice is calming, she must be a great mother. She has the type of voice that calm a crying child.

“I-,” James takes a deep breath and places a hand against his forehead. “I walked into his office to deliver him some papers and uh-,” James cringes and looks down to the dirt dispersed with grass, “he was uhm, having sex with Alex. On his desk. Without locking the door,” James looks up at Eliza. She looks shocked, but quickly turns to anger. 

“That piece of trash,” Eliza scoffs under her breath. 

“I just kind of sprinted out of there,” James chuckles half-heartedly, “then I tried to run to one of the unused meeting rooms to cool-off, but he somehow came in and started talking to me. I accidentally told him about the high school thing, I don’t know I was pissed,” James walks back against the wall and slumps down into a ball. 

“Oh my god,” Eliza shakes her head. “What a bitch,” Eliza whispers, biting her thumb nail. James chuckles a bit. 

“Do you think I’m stupid for trusting him again?” James watches Eliza as she thinks.

“No,” Eliza decides. James scoffs and shakes his head.

“But I let him do it twice, the second time I knew too,” James started drawing circles in the dirt with his finger. “How am I  _ not _ an idiot,” James asks.

“You’re not an idiot for trusting someone, Thomas is an idiot for breaking your trust,” Eliza responds admittedly. James thinks for a moment then nods. 

“Do you think I was some joke to him the whole time?” James asks with a new quiver to his voice. He could feel a big lump forming in his throat, and hot tears stinging at his eyes.

“I wish I could to tell you,” Eliza smiles weakly. James sniffles as a few tears roll down his cheeks.

“I never thought I’d cry over Thomas again,” James looks up at the sky.  _ Is this some sick sense of karma? Did I like kick babies in my past life or something? _ James wonders. 

“Fate’s weird that way,” Eliza shrugs, “it’s your best friend one day, and your worst enemy the next.” James looks over and smiles at Eliza.

“I feel like I’m going crazy,” James laughs a bit. They sit in silence for a few minutes, no one wanted to talk. They just sat, both slumped against the brick wall, thinking.  

“What are you going to do?” Eliza asks, after the silence. She looks worried and a bit angry. James takes a deep breath, trying desperately to steady his voice.

“I guess I just have to put on a fake smile and act like everything’s fine,” James says as he pushes himself off of the wall, followed shortly behind by Eliza. She placed a hand on James’s shoulder.

“You’re strong, you’ve got this,” Eliza smiles. James smiles back smalley. 

“Do I look like I was crying?” James asks, pointing to his face. Eliza cranes her neck as she studies James’s face. She wipes away a wet spot on his cheek then nods.

“You look perfectly fine!” Eliza beams. Her smile makes James feel slightly better. “Okay, let’s do this. I have an idea!” Eliza says, placing a hand on James’s back, guiding him back to the building. 

“I’ll sneak up stairs and grab your lunch, then I’ll bring it back down and we’ll pretend we were eating lunch together. When we go upstairs we’ll laugh and smile, and I’ll walk you to your desk, then I’ll leave. Like a bodyguard!” Eliza explained as they walked into the building. 

“Okay, sounds good,” James nods. Eliza walks him to her desk and motions towards her chair.

“You sit there and I’ll sneak upstairs, where’s your lunch?” Eliza asks as James sits down in her seat.

“Under my desk.”

“Okay, I’ll be right back,” Eliza says as she hurries off to the elevator. James watches her as she enters the elevator and goes up. When she’s gone James leans his head back, looking up at the ceiling.  _ Dammit, how am I going to face Thomas? If I talk to him I’ll either start yelling at him or break down. And knowing Thomas he won’t take silence as an answer. Shit, it’d be so much easier if I just trusted my logic, not my dumb feelings, _ James thought. He closed his eyes, but immediately thought of what he saw.  _ Shit, I can’t deal with this _ , James rubbed the corner of his eyes. A little ding came from the elevator and James prayed for a split second it wasn’t Thomas. He peaked up and saw Eliza walking up to him with his lunch box in her hands, James sighs with relief.

“You ready?” Eliza asks, reaching over the desk to grab her lunch box. James stands up and nods, putting on his best fake smile. “Great,” Eliza says with a tight smile. They walk to the elevator in silence and walk in. Eliza clicks the 14th floor button. 

“I’ll say something as the door opens and you just need to laugh really loud, okay?” Eliza is acting like she’s on a spy mission. She has one of those assertive stern looks. 

“Gotcha,” James nods, as the elevator flashes by floors his pulse picks up. 

“Showtime,” Eliza whispers as the door bings for the 14th floor. As the door opens she laughs and they start to walk out.

“Then I was like “Says the straight white male” ,” Eliza says loudly. James, not missing a beat, laughs loudly. It’s his practiced laugh, the one that could fool most people. 

“I can’t believe you,” James laughs again. He could see people peeking their heads over their cubicle walls and even saw Lafayette and Hercules stick their heads out of the break room. James barely gave any of them a glance, he pretends like he wasn’t worried about anything, he pretends like his heart wasn’t shattered into a million pieces. 

“I can see you doing that though!” James giggles, trying to die down the laughter.

“And the look he gave me! Priceless!” Eliza laugh. James joins in as they’re in the last stretch of James’s desk.  _ And Thomas’s office _ , James’s mind told him. James could see Thomas’s door was wide open.  _ Shit _ , James’s brain hissed.  

“I wish I was there,” James smiles with his biggest, brightest smile. He hoped Thomas could see him smiling, not feeling like shit because of him. Though it was unlikely, he knew you couldn’t see people from the elevator in there, but it was still worth a shot.

“You should’ve!” Eliza giggles. She brings him to his desk and makes sure he sits down in his seat. “Okay, well I’ll see you later?” Eliza asked, darting her eyes back to look at Thomas.

“Most definitely!” James laughs. Eliza smiles, but her facade was slipping. Maybe it was because she remembered his desk was right outside Thomas’s office and that didn’t account in her plan. Or maybe it was that smiling as big as she was, was somewhat painful.

“Well, uh, bye,” Eliza waves, walking backwards.

“Bye! Have a nice day!” James waves to her. Eliza’s face softens then she turns around and continues to walk away. James turns back to his computer and notices the earbuds in his computer’s jack. James sneers. He pulls them out and puts them in a little compartment in his desk. Jame ejects the CD holder and pulls out the disk, stuffing it into the case. James drops it into the little trash bin next to his desk. He dusts his hand together and pulls up a project he needs to work on and starts typing.

\------

Being angry or sad could be seen as a good thing for James. He’s always most productive and passionate about his work when he’s sad or angry. That’s probably the reason James started getting straight A’s in high school. After Thomas broke his heart the first time he started working extra hard. 

James can hear people behind him whispering. James peaks behind him and smiles brightly at them. They’re people he barely knows, John Adams, John Trumbull, Henry Knox. If people are going to gossip then James could at least act like he’s fine. As he’s looking back at them Alex comes strutting by. He smirks at James with half closed eyes.  _ That fucking bastard _ , James thinks. Alex turns and waltzes straight into Thomas’s office. The people gossiping by James left as soon as Alex walks into Thomas’s office. James pushes the encounter out of his mind and goes back to typing. 

“Yeah, okay,” James can hear Thomas’s tired voice come from his office. Alex leads Thomas out of his office, but Thomas stops when he sees James sitting at his desk. His eyes widen slightly and he turns towards James.

“James, I-” Alex coughs, breaking off what Thomas was going to say. James watches as the two exchange looks.( Aka Thomas is glaring at Alex and Alex is smirking at Thomas.)

“Angelica said she needs you to proof-read her report  _ right now _ ,” Alex raises an annoyed eyebrow, pointing his thumb back at Angelica’s office. 

“Well tell her I have something I have to do,” Thomas snarls at Alex. Alex winks then starts strutting back to Angelica’s office. James looks back down to his computer and resumes his writing.  _ Don’t say anything _ , James’s mind warns.

“James, I really need to talk to you,” Thomas looks around the hallway. James looks up at Thomas 

“What do you want?” James says in a level tone. Thomas flinches, looking around again.

“Can,” Thomas looks at his door, “Can we go into my office? I want some privacy.” 

James looks at his computer, then back up at Thomas. 

“Please?” Thomas mumbles. James thinks for a second.  _ Don’t do it _ , James’s mind yelled, but his curiosity took hold of him.

“Why not,” James says with a sarcastic tone, pushing up from his seat. Thomas sighs a bit and looks down, he scrunches up his face and points down to the trash bin.

“Is that the playlist I gave you?” Thomas asks. James doesn’t respond, he just glides past Thomas and walks into his office. The moment he enters he regrets it though, a sudden wave of sickness flows over him.  _ Really? Suck it up _ , James disciplines himself. 

“Are you…alright?” Thomas asks slowly as he closes the door. James feels claustrophobic in the room, it feels like all of the walls are going to start to close in on them. 

“I’m fine.”

Thomas looks James up and down. James puts on the blankest face he can have. “You’re lying,” Thomas finally says, he put himself between James and the door. Maybe he’s afraid James will just storm out. James probably would if he had the chance. 

“I’m paid to lie, Thomas,” James answers. Thomas looks down at the corner of the room. 

“James, I’m really sorry. I just- I just,” Thomas sighs as he looks James in his eyes, “I love you, okay?” James’s heart beat skips, even now.  _ Jesus _ .

“You loved me enough to fuck Alex?” James asks, pointing at the desk behind him. Thomas watches James.  _ Say something _ , James wasn’t sure if he meant meant him or Thomas, maybe it was both. 

“It was stupid, I know, but I really want to be with you,” Thomas laments, his eyes were turning red from tears building up at his eyes. James sighs and walks forward a step.

“Thomas, I don’t know if you this, but I liked you back. Hell, I loved you back, but you took that and threw out the goddamn window,” James kept his face straight the entire time. Thomas looked helpless at the mention over James’s feelings for him. Maybe he didn’t know James felt that way. James wasn’t entirely sure he felt the same way until he felt the pain that this cause him. Thomas chewed on his bottom lip and looked away again. 

“I-,” 

“No, Thomas, stop. You’ve made your choice. And it wasn’t me, so stop looking at me like you can undo that decision,” James sighs. Thomas furrows his eyebrows and he scowls.  _ I can’t take another minutes in this fucking room _ , James decides. 

“I hope you’re happy, Thomas,” James says as he pushes past Thomas and out the door. Thomas catches James’s wrist. James turns, surprised by how cold Thomas’s hands are. Thomas doesn’t say anything, so James doesn’t either. 

“I want to be with you,” Thomas whispers. His grip on James’s wrist tightens slightly.

“Quit dragging me along in your twisted game of heartbreak,” James mumbles, slipping his wrist out of Thomas’s hands, stepping out into the hallway. James shuts the door and looks at his computer, suddenly he doesn’t want to do his work here. An image of John flashes in his mind.  _ Shit, he must feel like crap too _ , James looks over at John’s office. He starts to make his way to the office. The door is closed and there’s a small sign tacked to the front of the door that says ‘ _ Out to Lunch’ _ , it was worth a shot to check. James slowly opens the doors.

“I’m busy,” John mumbles weakly. James pokes his head in.

“John?” He sees John hurriedly wipe at his eyes and lift his head happily. But relaxes when he realizes it’s just James. The skin around his eyes and the tip of his nose are red, probably due to crying.

“Oh, hi James,” John smiled weakly at James. James takes a seat on one of the small chairs in front of his desk. Silence fills the air. They both want to talk about it, but aren’t sure how to start the conversation.

“So,” John sighs. They both look away from each other. 

“So,” James fiddles with his hands.  _ Just talk, you both feel the same way, there’s no point to hind behind your little facade around him. Just breathe and you’ll be fine _ , James’s subconscious reassures him. 

“Have you cried yet?” James looks up from his hands. John scoffs and smiles a bit.  _ Wow, real eloquent there, James _ , James cringes a bit at his question.

“Yeah, I have,” John answers. He looks like he’s about to start crying again. James probably looks like that right about now. All of words are finally making sense to James so the full effect of Thomas’s words were talking a toll on James. His brain was just responding without him full understanding Thomas.  _ He loves me? He want to be with me? _ That dumb hopeful part of James asks.

“Did you?” John asks. James smiles down at his hands, thinking about his little cry out back with Eliza. 

“Yep.”

“Do you want to cry together?” John jokes. James smiles. “Is that a yes?” John laughs sadly.

“Those fuckers aren’t worth another tear,” James jokes back. He got a small laugh from John.  _ It’s true, they don’t have the right to know they made us cry _ , James thinks.  __

“You wanna know what’s weird?” John asks suddenly. James looks up from his hands and watches John. His eyes seem empty somehow, like all of the light was just drained out. James anxiously taps his finger on his thigh. 

“What?”

“Even after I’ve cried and I’ve thought this through, somehow I still like him. Do you think I’m insane?” John asks, motioning to his head. James thinks for a moment, studying the freckles dusting his face. James started connecting them with his eyes to calm himself down. 

“You’re not insane, you’re in love,” James shrugs. John laughs and a tear rolls down his cheek. 

“Shit,” John wipes at his eyes, “That’s exactly what I was worried about.” 

“John, this might be a tad hypocritical of me, but you can’t waste your life waiting for someone to love you back,” James looks John in the eyes. James wants him to know he’s being serious, he needs him to know this. 

“Can moving on even make it better?” John asks, he’s staring at the table now. Still with that lifeless look.

“I’m can’t promise it will, but I can promise there are other people out there just waiting to meet you,” James smiles. John wipes at his eye again and smiles softly back. 

“I-I saw the whole world, our whole world, in his eyes,” John sighs and pushes his fists into his eyes. 

“John, there’s 7.125 billion people in this world, there’s  7124999999 other people on the planet that you can see your world with,” James smiles. John thinks about this.

“7124999999 other people?”

“Yep.”

“Those are some pretty good odds,” John laughs. James smiles and nods. 

“I know,” James giggles. They sit in their chair smiling at the ground.

“Thanks, James,” John looks up and smiles. 

“No problem, really,” James nods. “I have some things to finish, I just needed a breather, so see you later?” James says standing up from the chair. 

“Yeah, by the way, you can stop and take a breather in my office any time you want,” John offers. James smiles.

“I’ll have to keep that in mind,” James says as he waves to John, leaving his office. 

“Back to hell,” James whispers to himself as he exits John’s office. James starts to walk back to his desk when a pair of hands pull him into another office. James falls back into the office and land at Lafayette and Hercules’s feet. James looks up at them.

“Hi?” James asks as he stands up and rubs his side. Lafayette guides him to a chair and him and Hercules hover over him like concerned parents. 

“Are you alright?” Hercules asks. James puts on his fake smile.

“Nope,” James was still smiling. Lafayette and Hercules exchange looks and frown at him. 

“Do you need anything?” Hercules motions to the vending machines line against the walls. 

“No, guys, I’m fine,” James stands up and moves away from the table. Lafayette blocks off the door before James could make a run for it.

“No you’re not, sit down,” Lafayette points, still with one hand cautiously stretched out towards the door.

“Why?” James sighs as he slouches back into his chair. 

“Because, if you don’t talk all of your problems will bottle up inside of you and one day you won’t be able to hold it in,” Hercules shakes his head as he picks out a drink for James.

James sighs and studies the two carefully, “What do you want to know?” 

“What  _ exactly _ happened? We need to find out from a reliable source,” Hercules says as he places a can of  _ Seven Up _ next to James. He cracks open the can and takes a slow sip.

“Well, I had to give Thomas some notes from Angelica, and when I opened just,” James runs his thumb up and down the can and takes a reassuring breath.  _ How the hell do I explain this? _

“Him and Alex were, you know,” James says, looking down in embarrassment. He heard Lafayette groan and Hercules sigh. “So instead of sitting there crying in the middle of the office I ran down stairs and tried to hide away in one of those unused meeting rooms, but Thomas slithered in and tried to apologize, but I escaped and ran out back with Eliza and I just sat there and cried,” James shrugged and took another drink of his soda. He decided to leave out his conversation with Thomas in fear that he’d start bawling. Every part of him just wanted to break down and start crying but James refused to let anyone see how hurt he was. He didn’t want to seem weak and vulnerable.

“That fucking douchebag,” Lafayette starts to pace back and forth. Hercules has a leg propped up on a chair and he looks like he’s thinking. “Who the fuck does that?” Lafayette looks irate.  _ Just breath, in, out. _

“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Hercules looks up from his far away stare. James and Lafayette look at him with a confused look.  _ In, out. _

“What?” James asks, straightening out in his chair.

“It’s just that I thought he legitimately liked you, he acted like it. He talked about you all the time, even when we were talking about something completely different. So why would he throw that away?” Hercules asks. Lafayette stopped in his tracks and nodded his head with a grave look on his face.  _ In, out _ .

“You’re right, but that doesn’t answer why he did  _ that _ ,” Lafayette continues his pacing. Hercules and Lafayette think for a few more minutes. 

“Do you think Alex was forcing himself on Thomas?” Lafayette looks over at James, but asked Hercules the question. Another image of Thomas on top of Alex flashes in his brain. 

“I can promise you that’s not what happened,” James sighs. Lafayette and Hercules exchange looks. 

“Anyways, you’ve heard what you’ve wanted to hear, so can I leave?” James asks, suddenly feeling claustrophobic in the little room. Lafayette nods and James walks to the door, opening it and walking out. James makes his way to his desk and sits down. He goes back to working on his paper. 

\--------

James hears a weird sound coming from Thomas’s office. James’s curiosity tells him to find out what’s happening, but he reminds himself what’s going on. James pushes the thought out of his head and goes back to working. Another weird sound. James takes his hands off of the keys and places them in his lap, looking annoyed at the door.  _ I won’t be able to do work, will I? _ James asks himself. James sighs and stands up wearily. 

He slowly walks over to the door and places his ear against the door. For a few seconds he doesn’t hear anything, but just as he was about to leave he heard something. It sounded like strangled whimpers. James pressed his ear up to the door and strains to hear the sound. A muffled sob and and quiet sniffle comes from the door.  _ He’s crying? _ James’s heart sinks even now.  _ He broke your heart, don’t feel bad _ , James reminds himself. James walks back to his desk with a sick feeling.  _ Is it bad that I feel bad? _ James asks himself. 

_ Damnit… _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Throws this at reader's* feast my children -Navi


	14. A Day in Eliza Schuyler's Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gosh Fricking Heck. This Chapters lit

Chapter 14

A Day in Eliza’s Schuyler's Shoes

 

The alarm clock rang, a groggy Eliza turning it off. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, stretching out her arms and sighing. Then saunter over the the window and opened the curtains, her wife rolled over in bed away from the window. She crawled into the bed and whispered in her ear.

“Maria, wake up,” She sing-songed. Maria groaned, and rolled over to face her.

“No.” She rolled back over.

“Fine! I guess you leave me no choice.” Eliza took a deep breath. She then proceeded to shove her wife off the bed.

“What the hel- heck!” Maria corrected as Philip ran into the room, jumping onto the bed.

“Pip! You’re awake, let’s go get you ready for school okay?” Eliza asks, taking his hand and walking out into the living room. Eliza turned on some cartoons to occupy him while she made breakfast.  

“How’s pancakes sound Pip?” Eliza asks, looking back at Philip.

“That sounds good Mommy!” Philip smiles back at Eliza. She grinned and turned back to the stove. Eliza hummed a little tune as the pancakes start to cook. Maria sways into the kitchen with the comforter around her shoulders and her eyes full of sleep.

“Good Morning Honey” Maria coos as she wraps her arms and the blanket around Eliza’s shoulders.

“Morning,” Eliza smiles. Maria takes a happy breath and kisses Eliza on the cheek. Eliza smiles and flips a pancake, putting it on a plate.

“Pip come get breakfast and eat,” Eliza calls. Pip looks up from the TV and plods over to the kitchen.

“Thank you!” Pip smiles as he takes the plate carefully from the counter and walks back to the coffee table in front of the TV. The television blare and Maria propped herself up on the counter.

“So did you hear about the whole _situation_ yesterday?” Maria asks. Eliza takes a sharp breath and frowns at the pancake.

“I did. And I’m fucking pissed,” Eliza smiled. Maria smirked and raised an eyebrow.

“Wow, swearing, that doesn’t happen all too often. What happened?” Maria asks, suddenly intrigued. Eliza plops a pancake down onto a plate.

“James ran to me crying because Thomas is a jerk, so I think that justifies cussing,” Eliza shakes her head and starts making another pancake. Maria picks up the plate and drizzles some syrup onto it, then digging in.

“You’re right,” Maria agrees, taking another bite of his pancake. Eliza slaps the spatula onto the counter and starts pacing.

“I mean, I don’t get it! James loved Thomas! He really truly did, even if he didn’t want to admit it! I think Thomas did too. I had heard him muttering to Lafayette about how Thomas felt in the hallway,” Eliza pushed back her hair and turned to Maria. “You wanna know what Thomas said? He said ‘Laf, there’s something different about James. I really feel something for him. And not the way I feel around guys like Alex, I want to get to know him and hold hands with him.” Then he turns around and cheats,” Eliza throws her hands up.

“You know they weren’t dating, right?” Maria points out. Eliza shoots her an annoyed look and Maria giggles in response.

“They were basically dating though, it just seems weird that he’d do it now,” Eliza goes back to working on the breakfast. Maria nods.

“I can’t accept him cheating on anyone,” Maria sighs and shakes her head. Eliza remembers James Reynolds, but doesn’t say anything.

“I know,” Eliza sighs.

“What’re you talking about?” Pip smiles as he places his dish in the sink. Eliza and Maria exchange looks and shake their heads.

“Nothing dear.”

\----------

Eliza pushes open the door and walks in, shortly followed by Maria.

“Okay bye Honey, I’ll see you later,” Maria waved as she kissed Eliza on the cheek.

“Bye!” Eliza smiled as Maria walked to the elevator. Eliza sat behind her counter and started working away on various projects. She heard the big glass door swing open and in came Thomas. Eliza glared up at him but paused when she saw him. His eyes were rimmed with red and he was frowning. Eliza looked at him a bit confused. He had a different air to him, he usually had that over the top and extroverted sense, but now he seemed dreary and tired. She watched him as he walked to the elevator. _Serves him right, I hope he regrets his decision the rest of his life. You chose to do this_ , Eliza yelled silently. After Thomas was out of sight Eliza went back to doing her walk and greeted people as they filtered through the building. Then in came James. His nose was red and he looked tired and like he was just crying. Eliza stood up at her desk.

“James, James, over here,” Eliza whispered. James obeyed and walked over to her desk. “Are you okay? You look terrible,” Eliza took a tissue and padded at his eyes and nose. James didn’t squirm he just looked down and a bit ashamed.

“I think I’m getting sick again,” James shrugs. Eliza raises her eyebrow.

“How’re you holding up?” Eliza says in a hushed tone. James scoffs and looks down again.

“Do you want it honestly or what I’ll be telling everybody else?” James asks, taking the tissue from Eliza and dabbing it along his water line.

“Honestly,” Eliza says as she leans forward in her chair. James sighs and starts crumpling and uncrumpling the tissue.

“Badly. I went home and cried. It was like a teen drama, I was sitting in my living room with Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and watching rom-coms,” James sighs. Eliza rubs James’s arm and shakes her head.

“Oh no, honey, I’m sorry,” Eliza furrows her eyebrows together and pats James on the shoulder. James shutters, trying his best to keep a straight face but failing.

“I-I should probably get to work,” James sighs and stands up, looking hesitantly at the elevator.

“If you need to take a break you can come down here,” Eliza offers, standing up with him. James looks to the elevator again and turns back to Eliza with a mousy expression.

“Could you, walk up to my desk with me? I don’t want to be ambushed by Thomas,” James asks with a worried look.

“Yeah of course,” Eliza nods and plasters on a big smile. James smiles back and they go to the elevator and click the 14th floor button.

“The worst part of this entire situation is all of the gossip going around, it feel like every room I walk into everybody stops immediately because they were talking about me,” James sighs, he seems exasperated.

“It’s just people that lives are so boring they have nothing to talk about besides other people’s problems,” Eliza shrugs. James nods silently as the door opens the door.

“So how’s Hanni? You haven’t talked about her in a while,” Eliza asks. James was spacing off and looked at Eliza with a surprised look.

“Oh, she’s good. I took her to this park thing a few days ago and she sat up in this cat jungle and wouldn’t come down to play with any of the other cats,” James smiled. Eliza smiled back and nodded.

“Is she one of those snooty cats?” Eliza asks as they approach James’s desk.

“Definitely,” James chuckles smalley. Eliza nods.

“Well, I’ll come and grab you for lunch, see you then?” Eliza asks as James sits down at his desk.

“Yeah, see you then,” James waves and spins towards his computer. Eliza chuckles and turns back towards the elevator. She looks down the hallway at John’s office. Alex walks out with a worried look. _What’s that about?_ Eliza asks herself as Alex shrugs and hurries back to Angelica’s office. Eliza gets down to her desk and notices a missed call on the phone.

“Eliza, I need you asap,” Angelica’s voice explained over the phone. _I just came from there_ , Eliza’s mind groaned.

She trudged back up to the elevator and watched the screen change. _The 14th Floor is the last place I want to be, if I see Thomas or Alex I’ll freak out at them_ . The door opens and Eliza steps out and looks both ways, she can see James typing away on his laptop. _Good_ , Eliza thinks. She starts making her way to Angelica’s office. She’s either swamped with work or annoyed, those are really the only two times she calls that’s not related to work. Eliza opens her sister’s door and walks in.

“Hi Angie!” Eliza smiles brightly as she closes the door behind her.

“Hey Eliza,” Angelica waves her hand absently. Eliza sits down in the expensive leather seat in front of Angelica’s desk. The piles of paper are even bigger than usual, she must be finishing a lot of cases.

“So what did you need?” Eliza asks. Her room smells like coffee and sweetener. She must be surviving off of caffeine again. Each month there’s a time when she feels like she’s super behind (which she usually isn’t) and has to survive off of caffeinated beverages so she doesn’t fall asleep on the job.

“Have you heard about the whole Thomas disaster?” Angelica asks in a hushed voice. “All of my employees have been blabbering about The Scandal On the 14th Floor,” Angelica looks annoyed and tired, which is her two emotions forty percent of the time.

“Yeah,” Eliza looks down and grimaces at the ground. Angelica seems intrigued by this and walks to the the other leather chair.

“So what happened?” Angelica asks as she leans over the arm of the chair. Eliza giggles a little and rolls her eyes.

“You probably didn’t know, but Thomas and James really liked each other,” Eliza explains. Angelica raises her eyebrow and shakes her head.

“No, I knew,” Angelica shrugged. Eliza cocked her head and squints at Angelica. “Did you really think I didn’t know? Thoma always made eyes at James, and James always got flustered around Thomas,” Angelica explains. Eliza smiles at how her sister can really be.

“I wouldn’t have gotten it if James hadn’t told me, but okay,” Eliza smiles lightly, “Anyways, yesterday James was delivering some papers to Thomas and he opened the door to find Thomas on top of Alex. And I’m sure you can figure out what I mean by “on top”.”

“Oh Jesus, I am never touching that desk again,” Angelica cringed. Eliza nodded.

“And now James is getting super depressed about it, and I’m really worried,” Eliza sighed. Angelica thought for a moment.

“Do you think he’s suicidal?” Angelica asks. Eliza shakes her head.

“No, I don’t think so. He has been like “oh, he’s just some douchebag, I won’t do anything”,” Eliza sighs. Angelica thinks for a few more seconds.

“I see, do you think he’ll quit?” Angelica asks again. Eliza thinks for a few more minutes.

“I don’t think so, he’s not dumb enough to quit work because he doesn’t mold well with his boss,” Eliza decides.

“Alright, well, I’ll let you get back to work. Thanks for explaining this to me,” Angelica says as she walks back to her desk and sits dow.

“Yeah, no problem,” Eliza smiles and walks to the door. She exits Angelica’s room and hears an angry conversation from the break room. Eliza looks at the door, then down the hallway towards James, he’s still sitting at his desk with earbuds in and his fingers tapping at the keys. _Shoot_ , Eliza thinks as her curiosity gets the best of her and she walks to the door. She peeps through the small window in the door. Lafayette and Hercules are yelling at Thomas. He looks annoyed and bit scared, but more than that he looks ashamed. Eliza gets instantly irritated. A hand lays on Eliza shoulder and she turns to see her wife.

“Hey Maria,” Eliza greets. Maria smiles mischievously.

“Let’s go in there and yell at him,” Maria grins. Eliza smiles and they walk in together. Hercules is the only one who turns when the door slams shut.

“And furthermore, you’re an absolute fucking idiot,” Lafayette yells, “And you threw that all away for what? Alex? The person who’ll throw you away in a month?”

“James would’ve kept you as long as he could, Thomas, he’d stay with you until you threw him away like you do with all of the other people you’ve dated,” Hercules joins in, his naturally loud voice being amplified by his anger. Thomas looks away. _How has he not responded yet?_

“Who in their right mind would throw away someone like James?” Lafayette yelled, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“I didn’t try,” Thomas whispered. That infuriated Eliza even more.

“What do you mean “didn’t try”? According to James you were _on top_ of Alex, how do you try not to do that?” now Eliza was yelling too. Thomas looked a bit surprised to see Eliza there.

“I just,” Thomas sighs, “It was an accident.” Thomas looked tired and clearly annoyed.

“How is that an accident? That can’t be an accident! Did you plan to throw James aside from the beginning?” Eliza tried to keep a calm and even voice but it wasn’t working.

“No,” Thomas whispered. Eliza shook her head.

“You know, he cried over you. You realize that right? He cried yesterday, he was crying because he genuinely liked you. And he was crying this morning. Only a piece of shit makes the person that loves them cry,” Eliza yells, she’s starting to pace again. Thomas didn’t respond, he just bit his lip.

“I regret it, I regret it more than anything,” Thomas mumble. Eliza could only see red. She flipped around and slapped Thomas. Her hand was pang with pain but she didn’t react. Thomas’s eyebrows were raised and he looked surprised.

“No shit, of course you would! Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you did it!” Eliza threw up her arms. Everybody was silent.

“Nice job, Babe!” Maria smiled and patted Eliza on her back. Eliza smiles back at her.

“You’re an idiot, Thomas, a bone-ified idiot,” Lafayette said as Hercules and him left the room. Eliza and Maria followed slowly behind them. They stepped into the hallway.

“By Mari,” Eliza smiled and waved, making her way to the elevator. Maria waved back and winked.

“Bye Liz.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Hestia and I both have Tumblr! If y'all got a tumblr you should come and find us!  
> Mine is Navi-Senpai  
> Hestia's is Blubbering-Fangirl  
> self promos aside!  
> Thanks for all of you kind words!  
> -Navi~


	15. The Redemption of Thomas Jefferson

James’s head was pounding and his stomach felt like it was doing backflips.  _ I must really be sick _ , James decided. He spent the whole day trying to ignore the pain of his sickness and trying to do his work, but he was unable to. The whole day, James was debating going home sick or if he should just tough it out. But now James’s stomach was so out of it that he was having trouble paying attention. James looked to the computer on his desk then up to the clock. 

He  _ had _ gotten a lot of work done. It probably wouldn’t inconvenience anybody. Angelica has Alex back to deliver papers and Thomas, luckily, stopped asking James to do his bidding. So lately James has had a lot of time to do his work. James sighed, rubbed his temples, then stood up. James made his way back to the elevator and went down to the lobby. James’s head was spinning and he was tired, not a good mix. Eliza peaked her head over one of the screen monitors.

“Are you going home early?” Eliza asks, standing up from her chair. James stepped over to Eliza’s desk.

“I think I’m going to,” James sighed. Eliza nodded her head. Eliza might think it’s because of Thomas, but it honestly wasn’t. James would never miss work unless he was sick, he got sick so often that he’d use up all of his sick day and couldn’t use one up from a sick day.  

“I’ll tell Angelica, don’t worry I’ll take care of it,” Eliza said, pushing James towards the door. James chuckled a bit and opened the door.

“Eager to get rid of me?” James joked. Eliza laughed along, muffled by the hand held to her face.

“No, I just don’t want to get sick,” Eliza giggles. James nodded, pushing open the door and balancing back on his own feet. 

“Okay, bye!” James chuckles, which turned into a sick cough. The wind was cold but the sun was still shining brightly. James walks to his car and starts driving back to his apartment.

James’s mind started to wander, thinking about random things. His thoughts (quickly) turned to what people are starting to call “The Scandal on the 14th Floor”. The nickname was pretty funny, people are treating it like some fanfic. James has been spending more time than he’d like pining around his house. One of the good things to come from this is that Hanni has been sweet lately, unlike his usual annoyed expression. 

Last night he was sitting on his couch, nothing playing the background just his thoughts, petting Hanni. It was relaxing, but it also made James sad. A few times his phone would start ringing. Thomas kept trying to contact him, using the phone, text message, and FaceTime. James got so annoyed that he blocked Thomas’s number. Luckily Thomas hasn’t tried coming to his house yet, just a matter of days until he does though. And James has not been excited for it, James has even been considering asking John if he could stay over. But that choice would have some bad repercussions, like how people would take James sleeping over at John’s house the wrong way, how John or anybody else would think James was frightened by Thomas, and if somebody else needed to come over. It was just overall easier to stay home and ignore Thomas if he tried over. 

James pulls into the parking lot and parks his car. James turns off the car then remembers his computer and his bag. They were sitting on his desk, open and alone.

“Shit,” James hisses. His head was still pounding and his stomach did  _ not _ feel good.  _ Now I’m going to have to go allllll the way there then allll the way back _ , James curses as he turns his car back on. James was cursing the whole way back to the building, wishing his sick brain would remember stuff. 

“James?” Eliza asks as James trudged back into his office. “What are you doing?” Eliza asks hurriedly. James walks to Eliza’s desk and props himself up on the nice granite top.

“I forgot my laptop bag, so I have to come back and pick it up,” James shrugs and watches as Eliza raises her eyebrow.

“Did you by chance hear about anything happening in the breakroom?” Eliza asks. James cocks his head and squints at Eliza.

“No? What happened?” James asks with a bit of laughter in his voice. Eliza laughs and shakes her head.

“Oh nothing, just forget about it,” Eliza shrugs. James laughs and shakes his head, he was too tired and sick to question her further. James makes his way to the elevator and gets in, pressing the button to the 14th floor.  _ I just want to go back home and sleep, _ James thinks to himself. 

The elevator door opens and James steps out into the hallway. James quickly walks to his desk and scooped up his stuff, making sure to remember everything this time. But suddenly James could hear an annoyed conversation happen down the hallway. James hesitates for a second, but tiptoes to the corner. James leans next to a wall, right next to the corner. Down the hallway were the restrooms and the drinking fountains.  _ What could people be doing down there? _

“No Alexander! This is your fault! I can’t believe you.” James pressed his cheek against the plaster of the wall. The voice sounded like Thomas, but he was whispering so it was a bit difficult to tell.

“What do you mean? We’ve been hooking up for months. Just because you start liking some random assistant all of the sudden doesn’t change that! You two weren’t even  _ in _ a relationship!” it was Alexander’s voice. James’s stomach felt like it was tied in knots. He heard an annoyed grunt from Thomas. 

“Yes, but I still loved him. Plus you  _ purposely _ didn’t lock the door! You were the one who said we should do it in my office “Because it would be sexier Thomas.” That’s what you said to me! You knew I loved him! You told me that this would be our last time or whatever and I guess you were right Alexander,” Thomas’s voice was hard and annoyed, but also sad and remorseful. Polar opposites. James could hear an annoyed groan coming from Alex.

“Thomas, I love you! I love you more than that bastard ever could.” Alex half yells, half whispers. James heartbeat was going crazy. And he felt like he was going to throw up, at least more than he did before. 

“Don’t you ever talk about James like that ever again you bitch! I’m tired of having to deal with you and all of the problems you caused me. Because of you I lost the love of my life, so leave, leave and stay out of my love-life,”  Thomas says, his voice dripping with hatred. James’s heart skipped a beat when Thomas said ‘love of my life’.  _ Jesus, you’re supposed to be mad at him, not getting all hot n’ bothered _ , James scolds himself. 

James thinks for a second before Alex storms out of the hallway and towards Angelica’s office, not even sparing James a glance. James panics before he hurries off towards the elevator. James taps his foot as he waits for the elevator door to shut, but Thomas walks out from the hallway and looks annoyed. 

James looks around awkwardly as he waits for the elevator to shut. Thomas saunters over to James’s trash bin and fishes something out. As Thomas pulls it out the lights shine off of it. It’s Thomas’s playlist. The doors shut as Thomas pushes his hair back and shakes his head. James’s heart was beating fast and he stood, stunned, in the elevator. 

“Shit,” James whispers as the elevator doors open again. James quickly walked out of the building, hearing a small “Bye” from Eliza. 

“Shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So so so what's your guys' thoughts on the new development?


	16. I want to be with you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;)

_ Where is he? _ Thomas wonders as he stares down at James’s empty desk. Thomas looked around, James was sitting in John’s office the last half of yesterday, but maybe he was still in there. Thomas walked over to John’s office, with his fake confidence and pushes open John’s door. John looks up from a stack of papers and an annoyed look on his face. John (along with most of the people in the office) weren’t too friendly with Thomas right now.

“What do you want?” John groaned. Thomas looks around the room, nothing.  _ Where could he be? _ , Thomas asks himself before looking back to John.

“Do you know where James is?” Thomas shrugs. John raises his eyebrows and places his hands neatly on the papers in front of him.

“I don’t, but if I did, I wouldn’t tell you,” John says simply. Thomas rolls his eyes and pushes at his forehead.

“Yeah, okay,” Thomas says, leaving John’s office. Thomas stands at the door, looking around at the cubicles around him. Thomas sighs and starts back towards his office. He sat down in his swivel chair and stares up at the ceiling.  _ Maybe he quit? Hopefully not, shit what if he quit because of me!  _ Thomas looks up at his door and hunches over his lap. 

_ Shit, Maybe I can ask Angelica? No, she’d yell at me if it was true. Eliza? No she decked my face out yesterday and she could do worse. John, Lafayette, and Hercules are out of the question, they’d yell at me. I can’t call him, he blocked my number, but maybe I could stop by his house.  _  Thomas stared back up at his ceiling. He held his breath and thought over the possibilities of how Thomas visiting James. 7 out 10 of those end in Thomas getting kicked out.

_ I need to try. _ He decided he was going to go to James’s house and explain the whole situation to James. At least he’d try to explain everything. Thomas sighed and started to type on his computer, trying to push his plans out of his head. 

\----------

Thomas stared up at the tall apartment building, his heart pounding and his body numb. Thomas is biting away at his lip. He does that when he’s anxious and with everything that’s been going on lately his lips have gone tender. 

“James, just listen, please,” Thomas rehearsed, listening to the stuffy silence. He sighs and lays his head on the steering wheel.  _ This is going to be a mess _ , Thomas thinks to himself. Thomas awkwardly exits his car and turns back towards the building.  _ Okay Thomas, you can do this, just relax _ , Thomas tells himself as he makes his way to the stairs up to James’s apartment. Half way up the flight of stairs he turns around and sits down at the step.  _ Maybe I can’t do this? What if he doesn’t accept my apologies? What would I do? I don’t know if I could handle that _ , Thomas thinks as he huddles his arms around his legs. _ Gosh darnit, ugh, just do it. I’ll regret it more if I don’t do it _ , Thomas reminds himself. He stands up and continues back up the stairs and down James’s hallway. _ James, just listen please _ , Thomas repeated as he walked to James’s door. He stands in front of the door and sighs again.  _ Shit, my heart is beating so fast _ , Thomas presses a hand to his chest.  _ Okay, let’s do this _ . Thomas knocks on the door, waiting for a response. 

“Hello?” a small, sick voice comes from inside.  _ I think I almost just had a heart attack _ , Thomas thinks as he let out a breath. Thomas hesitates for a second and bites his lip.

“It’s-it’s Thomas,” It didn’t sound like Thomas, it sounded smaller and more awkward. It sounded shaky and anxious.  _ Great start, Thomas, great start, _ he thought as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. James didn’t respond for a few seconds. Right before Thomas was going to walk away- _ I know it’s cowardly but if he doesn’t want me here I’ll leave _ -the door opened. Thomas looked down at James with wide eyes. James wasn’t looking at him, and he was wringing his hands together with the sleeves of his sweater around his wrists. Thomas’s heart sank a bit when he saw James standing at the door. 

“Could I come in?” Thomas looked away, his heart's pounding in his ears. James thought for a second more. He nods and walks over to his couch and sits down, leaving Thomas to stand at the door. Thomas stepped in, too afraid to go any farther into James’s apartment than the tiled area separating the foyer from the rest of the apartment.

The room smells like lavender and Germ-X. The room is littered with Kleenex, a box for Mucinex, and a stack of movies on the coffee table. Thomas felt awkward in the small apartment, like if he moved around he’d hit his head on the ceiling. The TV was sitting in the menu for Netflix, the recommended still full of rom-coms.  _ I wish my love-life was more like a rom-com _ , Thomas thought absently.

James wasn’t look at Thomas, but Thomas was looking at James. Thomas didn’t know what to say. How could anybody? Thomas watched as James shifted uncomfortably and peaked up at Thomas a few times.  _ Jesus I could cut the tension in this room with a knife _ . He felt like he needed to sprint around the building to calm his adrenaline. James had a big blue sweater and black and white track shorts, his nose was red and he looked sick. Thomas couldn’t help but think how cute James looked. 

Thomas tried to search for the right words, even though he had practiced what he would say over and over again. Somehow the words didn’t sound right in this setting. Charlotte jumped up onto the arm on the couch and James started petting her. Thomas bit his lip again.

“James, I want to explain what happened,” When Thomas said this it it came out more awkward than he expected. James looked up at Thomas for a second. He looked uncertain for some odd reason. Just yesterday at work James was giving Thomas the death glare anytime he  _ actually _ looked at him.  _ I wonder what the sudden change in moniker is _ .

“Okay.” 

Thomas took a deep breath and slowly let it out.  _ Okay good, good, this is going okay _ . 

“James, I know I messed up, badly, really badly. Like royally messed up,” Thomas knit his eyebrows together and smiled tightly, “But I can explain. At least a little.” Thomas tried to search for the right words but they wouldn’t come out.

“Then explain it to me,” James said in a soft tone. Thomas was a bit put off by the sudden change in tone, it’s either a good thing or a worse thing. James still had that uncertain expression, Thomas’s mind was more on what was making James make that face.

“The day  _ that _ happened Alex-he uh- snuck into my office and was flirting with me and talked me into having one “last romp”, or whatever. He said that when he walked into my room he had locked the door. He was telling me how I wouldn’t be “free” anymore, “ Thomas pulled at his scarf and adjusted his glasses. “And I don’t know, I was caught up in the moment,” Thomas looked down, ashamed by the whole situation. Thomas looks back up at James and expression was cold but his eyes were sad.

“And that’s your excuse?” James asks, pushing Charolette off of his lap and standing up. 

“It’s not an excuse, I realize it was a huge fucking mistake, but I just,” Thomas bites his lip again, “I really want another shot.” James stands in front of Thomas with a stern look even with the height difference Thomas was intimidated by the angry look. Thomas stared into James’s eyes, trying as hard as he could to show him he meant it. James was studying Thomas’s face, it made him squirm, like he was being put under a microscope.

Suddenly James’s eyes softens and his eyes start to tear up, they’re big tears. He looks down and starts rubbing at his eyes, his shoulders were shivering up and down. Thomas desperately wanted to hug him tightly, he desperately wanted to close the distance. 

“James, I’m sorry. I really really want to fix this,” Thomas mumbles under his breath. James looks up, his hands hovering around his face. He didn’t look mad, he just looked sad. The look he gave Thomas made his heart sink, it made it feel heavy and slow.

“Thomas,” James’s voice was shaking, “I just want this to be over now.” Thomas furrowed his eyebrows and looks off.  _ Shit, shit, I didn’t want him to say that _ . James pulls at the end of Thomas’s coat sleeve, bringing his attention back to James, though he left his hand hangs onto the sleeve. 

“I’m so tired of hurting, Thomas, you take up all of my thoughts and it’s maddening,” James says with an angry, but still shaking tone. James slips his hand away from the cuff of Thomas’s coat and lays it back by his side. Thomas fiddles with a ring on his index finger.

“I don’t want to hurt you James, I want to be with you,” Thomas repeats, hoping that the more times he says it the more likely James is to agree with it. James looks at him with a heart-broken expression. The look made Thomas tear up a bit, it was a look Thomas knew all too well, especially from James. 

“I can’t believe you Thomas! I just can’t,” James yelled, his voice loud and assertive. He stepped forward and pushed Thomas slightly. “I can’t be-,” James’s voice cuts off and his eyes tear up. He starts crying again, weakly hitting Thomas’s chest. 

“James, I’m sorry,” Thomas mumbles. His brain felt like it wasn’t working, it’s the only thing he could think to say. James let out a sob and slid down to the floor, pushing his hands into his eyes. Thomas was starting to cry too. He couldn’t help it, it hurt him to see James like this, because of him too.

“Thomas, I’ve tried to forget about you, I’ve tried to tell myself to hate you and never give you a second chance, but no matter how hard I try it doesn’t work. I still love you, and I’m confused because I feel like I shouldn’t,” James sobs out. Thomas kneels down to James and wraps his arms around James’s shaking shoulders. 

“James give me another chance, please,” Thomas’s tears fall into James’s sweater. James reaches his arms around Thomas’s waist and squeezes his fists around the fabric of Thomas’s outer coat. Thomas held James tighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, firstly I was so happy to write this chapter I was like freaking out. Secondly, the next chapter WILL be out tomorrow, so you won't have to wait too long (I mean we all know the answer buttttt...)


	17. Whipped Cream

“Okay.”

James watches as Thomas looks at him blankly him. With wide confuse eyes. James chuckles through his tears and a big, genuine smile spreads across his face. 

“Thank you,” Thomas hugged James tighter and cried into James’s shoulder. James is crying too and hugs Thomas back. James ignores his immediate anxieties and just enjoys Thomas. He feels cold and tense. Hey sit like that for a while, just sitting and enjoying what’s happening. 

“I can’t believe you forgave me, when I came here it was  _ literally  _ the last thing I expected,” Thomas laughs, sniffling after he says this. James leans back from their hug and resituates himself on the floor.

“If it makes you feel any better I can’t believe I did either,” James shrugs with a slight chuckle in his voice. Thomas smiles and takes James’s hand, rubbing his thumb against the back of James’s hand.  _ Are we dating now?  _ James asks himself. Either way, he likes the new physical contact they have. Even though Thomas is so tall he has a really soft touch, he’s really gentle.

“You know, a good thing to come from all of this is that we both confessed to each other,” Thomas laughed. A light blush covered James’s cheeks, the thought of him yelling at Thomas that he love him is oddly embarrassing. Throwing around ‘love’ isn’t a thing James does, even since he was young he knew love actually meant something. But he doesn’t feel like he’s throwing it around, he feels like he actually means it.

“Yeah, I guess we did,” James laughed softly. Thomas smiled at James with a caring expression, James smiled back. 

“So I have a lot of ice cream, want some?” James asks as he stands up from their spot on the floor. He can hear Thomas shuffling around behind him.

“Yeah,” Thomas answered simply.  _ Hopefully he doesn’t ask  _ why  _ I have so much ice cream _ , James thinks. Thomas took off his coat, scarf, and shoes as James walked to the kitchenette. Thomas has a tight black shirt and light blue skinny jeans. He makes his way to the kitchenette and hops up onto a counter and swings his legs back and forth.

“Wow,” Thomas raises his eyebrows and smiles a bit. James chuckles as he pulls out out all of the ice cream tubs. James set each of containers in a row on the counter. 

“Okay, which one?” James asks, motioning towards the line of ice cream. Thomas raised his eyebrows and smirks at James. “What?” James giggles.  _ It feels nice to be on good terms with Thomas again, I miss this _ , James thinks as Thomas gestures for James to come over by him. James shakes his head and smiles, walking over in front Thomas. 

“What?” James smirks up at Thomas. Thomas pulls James closer and wraps his dangling legs around James’s legs. “Oh my God Thomas,” James chuckles as Thomas leans his forehead against James’s.

“Damn, I’ve missed you,” Thomas whispers. James smiles up at Thomas and kisses him on the nose. Thomas sits straight up and places a hand up to his nose.

“Mhm,” James smiles and walks back to the line of ice cream, “So, ice cream choice?” Thomas slinks down from the counter and points to a tub of chocolate ice cream. James nods and starts scooping out some ice cream into a bowl. Thomas watches James as he leans against the counter. James looks over embarrassedly then back down at the bowl. James hands Thomas his bowl and gets to work on his.

“The syrup and whipped cream are in the fridge,” James points, then continues with his bowl of ice cream. Thomas makes his way to the fridge and fishes out the things and starts drizzling chocolate sauce across the ice cream. James finishes his ice cream and scoops all of the tubs of ice cream and put them back into the freezer. James turns back to Thomas and he places a bit of whipped cream on James’s nose. Thomas leans forward and kisses the end of his nose. He licks his lips and goes back to putting whipped cream on his ice cream. 

“What was that about?” James laughs and starts putting toppings on his ice cream. They both finish and walk back to the couch and start eating. Thomas drapes himself across the couch and shovels the ice cream into his mouth.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” James asks, snuggling up into a ball on the end of the couch. 

“Sure,” Thomas nods, looking at the TV screen. James starts flipping through the recommended section. “Oh! That one!” Thomas says stopping James on the movie Heathers. James clicks play and the movie starts. He gets up and turns off the lights in the apartment, he finishes and sits back down on the couch. James zones out on the movie when his sweater is tugged. He looks over at Thomas who’s smirking. James raises his eyebrow. 

“Come here,” Thomas chuckled.  _ For someone who was  _ just _ forgiven he sure is pushy _ , James thinks as he scoots closer. Thomas clicks his tongue and pulls James into his lap. James’s face feels like it’s on fire and he can hear Thomas’s heartbeat against his ear. James looks up at Thomas and smiles. They continue to watch the movie, with James held tight to Thomas’s chest. James’s mind went back to the question he had earlier.  _ Are we dating? Or is too early? Plus, he’s my boss, wouldn’t that be weird? _ James looks up at Thomas.

“Are we-are we dating?” James asks meekly, trying to whisper for the movie. Thomas looks down, resting his chin on James’s forehead. 

“I mean if you want to,” Thomas looks off nervously. James thinks for a second, studying Thomas’s face. 

“I want to,” James smiles softly, Thomas smiles down with a big toothy grin. Thomas finishes his ice cream and wraps his arms around James.  _ Wow, I didn’t realize I wanted this so badly _ , James thinks as he snuggles comfortably into Thomas’s arms. 

\--------

“Veronica, you look like Hell.”

“Yeah? I just came back,” The movie blares.

James moves around in Thomas’s arms to see if he was still awake, the steady rise and fall of his chest indicated otherwise. 

“Thomas?” James asks as he squeezes out from his arms. James sits back where he was originally seated. _Why is he so tall?_ James squinted as he stared at Thomas. _Should I just fall asleep in my bedroom, or would that be rude?_ James asks himself. James shrugs as he reaches for his phone on the coffee table. _I should probably tell everybody before work on Monday_ , James bites at his finger nail. He opens up their group chat and texts **Hey guys, Thomas and I have made up, and we’re going to try again**. James decided that putting it bluntly would probably be best. The first person to respond was Eliza, **James, I’m not going to tell you you can’t, but I am going to tell you to be careful with him**. James sighs, watching everybody else tell him the same thing. **I know, I’m going to, but-idk-I really want to be with him** ** _,_** James defends. A collective silence from the chat. **I think if James wants to be with Thomas he should be able to do what he wants** , John defends. James makes a mental note to thank John later. **Yeah, John’s right. James I hope you and Thomas’s relationship goes well** ** _,_** Hercules agrees. James smiles down at his phone. **James, I wish you luck with your relationship too!** Lafayette texts. **I still think you should be careful, but I do wish you luck** , Eliza texts. James smiles down at his phone, _That was a lot easier than I thought it’d be_. **Thanks guys. Really** , James writes. He shuts off his phone and sets it back on the coffee table. Hanni jumps up onto Thomas’s stomach and walks around in a circle before she lays down. James smiles softly to himself. 

_ I’m glad I forgave him _ .


	18. Shut Up and Kiss Me

Thomas rubs his eyes and sits up, Charlotte jumping off of his chest. Before he even opens his eyes his senses fill with lavender and anti-bacterial. Thomas opens his eyes and takes in his surroundings, his eyes landing on James. He’s sleeping on the other end of the couch. James’s chest is steadily moving up and down under his big sweater, and he has a content expression on his face.  _ He could’ve just slept in his bed _ , Thomas smirks down at James. Thomas takes James’s hand and rubs his thumb up and down.  _ Why the heck are you so cute?  _ Thomas leans across the couch and kisses James on the cheek. James stirs, looking up, with sleep still in his eyes.

“Thomas?” James asks sleepily. Thomas, still leaning over him, kisses him on the cheek again. Thomas has always been a very physical person, when he was in relationships he always wanted to hold their hands or wrapped around his shoulders. And now with James so close to him after so long of him not being around him makes Thomas want to touch him and hug him even more. James smiles softly under Thomas. “What are you doing,” James laughs softly, Thomas can feel James’s breath on his face. 

“Can we just have a lazy day today?” Thomas says pulling James onto him. James squirms around again, making Thomas hold him tighter.

“Thomas, we can’t lay on my couch the whole day,” James tries to wriggle free but Thomas holds him tight. James slumps back down and watches Thomas’s growing smirk. Charlotte jumps onto his lap and his eyes trail to the cat.

“Who says?” Thomas whispers into James’s ear. James looks back at Thomas and scrunches up his nose.  _ You’re so cute, Jeez _ , Thomas smirks and holds James tighter. 

“Thomas,” James says with a disapproving frown. 

“Come on, you don’t have anything to do today,” Thomas points out. James thinks for a second then frowns again.

“Yes, but we can’t lay on the couch the whole day, it’s a waste of time,” James says, taking Thomas’s hand. They both watch their intertwined hands.

“I would gladly waste all of my time with you,” Thomas smirks, getting happier at the flush of color in James’s cheeks. 

“You must think you’re so slick,” James mumbles. Thomas chuckles softly.

“Why, yes, I do in fact,” Thomas answers, grabbing the remote from the coffee table. James mocks what he said and shakes his head, soliciting a laugh from Thomas. Thomas choose a movie and they settle back listening to the movie.

“Thomas, can I say something a bit weird?” James asks, not looking up from their hands. Thomas looks down a bit worried, but nods. “I like holding your hand, it makes me feel needed,” James looks up a bit. Now it’s Thomas’s turn to get flustered. James smiles and looks back to the TV. The movie blares on about some blossoming romance.

Thomas wasn’t fully paying attention, One part of his brain was focused on the movie, one was focused on James, and the biggest part was still bothered by James being the James from high school.  _ Was he saying that to mess with me? No James wouldn’t lie about something like that, would he? _ Thomas debates between asking him and not. Thomas looks nervously at James and decided he’d ask. 

“James can I ask you something?” Thomas asks, watching James look up at him. 

“Yeah? What is it?” James as a bit uncertainly. 

“Are you really the guy from high school?” Thomas asks, watching James’s face for a change in expression. 

“Yeah, I am,” James looks down a bit ashamed. A million other questions rushing to his brain.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” Thomas asks with more annoyance than he intended. James sighs like it’s obvious

“You were my new boss, it’d be a bit difficult to bring up that I was this mysterious boyfriend you had years ago. Plus,” James raises his eyebrow, “How are you supposed to bring that up in casual conversation?” Thomas chuckles softly. 

“You do have a good point,” Thomas smirked. James nodded.

“I have another question, did you  _ really _ not remember what happened that night I slept over at your house?” James asks skeptically. Thomas looks at James with a blank expression. James sighs and face palms. “You really don’t remember, do you?” James sighs and moves around to look at Thomas more comfortably. 

“No, what happened?” Thomas asks, sitting up a bit. James looks away with a flustered look. “What? Tell me!” Thomas insists. James looks down and covers his face. 

“It’s so embarrassing though,” James peeks through. Thomas laughs and pulls James’s hands down from his eyes. 

“What?” Thomas insists. James squirms a bit with a reddened face and a small smile on his lips. 

“Well, you were pretty wasted that night,” James looks off towards the TV. Thomas’s mind jumps to a conclusions.

“Oh shit, did I do something?” Thomas asked quickly. James laughs and shakes his head.

“No, nothing like that, in fact you backed off,” James explains, putting his hands up. Thomas sighs but quickly gets confused again. James giggles a bit.

“Wait did I do something dumb?” Thomas ask, hiding his face behind his hands and waiting for James’s answer.

“Well you advanced and you just kissed me, but I backed away and,” James trailed off and his face went red. 

“Oh God, I forgot our first kiss? Oh shit, oh no,” Thomas pushes back his hair and shakes his head back and forth. James takes Thomas’s hand and pulls his attention back to him.

“Thomas, I don’t blame you, you were shit-faced,” James smiles lightly. Thomas smiles weakly up at James.

“You know, that doesn’t exactly make me feel better,” Thomas laughs with knit eyebrows. James snickers.

“Want to know the totally embarrassing thing I was thinking?” James looks down at his hands with a weak smile. Thomas takes James’s hand.

“What? I’d love to hear,” Thomas smiles, not skipping a beat. James laughs, that beautiful genuine laugh. 

“I said, ugh,” James groans and buries his face in his hands, “I was thinking “I want to be sober when this happens, I want to remember everything”,” James says nervously. Thomas’s face goes red and he clasps a hand over his mouth to conceal his smile. 

“Agh, you must think I’m a total creep,” James leans his head against Thomas’s chest to hide his expression. Thomas lets out a muffled laugh. “Ugh, stop you’re making me more embarrassed,” James pushes his hands against his face.

“Aw, It’s fine babe,” Thomas runs his hands through James’s hair. James shakes his head. 

“Why am I so embarrassing?” James laughs. 

“I think it’s cute, if anything,” Thomas smirks. James looks up at Thomas with a weird look. He looks a bit mad and a little put off. 

“You must think I’m a total creep, oh God,” James places a hand on his forehead. Thomas laughs again and shakes his head.

“I really don’t, I mean you’re around me all the time, why wouldn’t you want a piece of this?” Thomas motions to himself and puts on a big cocky smile. James does another of his beautiful laughs. 

“Hey, look at me real quick,” Thomas smirks. James looks up and Thomas leans in, kissing James. He’s warm and soft, just like Thomas expected. His lips even taste like cherry, Thomas licks the flavor off of his lips.  _ I have waited so long for this _ . James runs his fingers in Thomas’s hair, Thomas smirks against James’s lips. Thomas puts one hand against James’s cheek and slips his other up James’s shirt. James pushes his tongue into Thomas’s mouth.  

“Wow, you’re forward aren’t you,” Thomas mumbles only inches away from James’s mouth.

“Just shut up and kiss me,” James whispers, leaning forward and connecting their lips again. Thomas bites James’s bottom and leans James back on the couch. Thomas arcs over James, him having one arm pulling Thomas closer to him.  _ Goddamn he’s so beautiful _ , Thomas’s mind exclaims. Thomas pulls James’s torso towards him as he kisses him more feverishly. James pulls away from Thomas and both of them breath heavily. Thomas watches James’s eyes. They’re a dark brown, warm, inviting, and remind Thomas of chocolate chips.

“Here, let’s uh,” James looks towards his bedroom door. Thomas’s smirk grows, and pulls James up with him.

“Let’s go,” Thomas says pushing open the door and throwing James onto the bed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo, guys the next chapter will be smut based and it is fully skippable! So all the sexy stuff makes you uncomfortable you can skip that chapter. There will be more info in the next chapter's summary so stick around my kiddos - your mother, Navi


	19. Fuck, he's hot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay kiddos, the contents of this chapter are very, um, adult. I think the only non skippable thing in this is a small scene in the after care. So if the sexy part makes you uncomfortable for whatever reason, you are able to just skip to the end or just skip the entire thing! Oh and I did the majority of this chapter because Hest is too pure and innocent. I mean the only time I have seen her cuss is when she was fuming at these guys. -Navi

James’s back hit the mattress, that's when he fully realized what was about to happen, and with who.  _ Thomas Jefferson, and my boss _ , James remembers. 

“Strip for me Maddy,” Thomas says in a low seductive tone. He watched as Thomas pulls off his shirt and he licks his lips.  _ Fuck, he’s hot.  _ James thought as he sat up taking his own shirt off and then striping his shorts. James then lays back down propping himself up on his elbows. Thomas crawls over James with a mischievous look on his face. James carefully watches Thomas’s face, taking in every detail of him. The glint in his eyes, the softness of his hair, the beautiful white of his teeth, why was everything about him is so perfect?  _ It’s a wonder that he’d ever be with me _ , James thinks. 

“Why are you so beautiful?” Thomas whispers. They kiss, unlike before Thomas feels so alive and warm, so amazing. James pulls away.

“I could ask you the same Thomas,” James smirks, going back into the kiss this time more rough. Thomas’s hands run over James chest, watching as one hand traveled down past his navel and the other stays at his waist. Thomas grinds up against him, slowly humming. James sucked on Thomas’s neck, making sure to leave hickeys. 

James runs his fingers through Thomas’s hair, curling a tendril around his finger. Thomas starts kissing down James’s neck, sucking on a few of James’s sweet spots. James wraps an arm Thomas’s neck and pulls him closer, kissing him with extreme care. They pull away, gasping and Thomas leans his forehead against James’s. They were staring into each other’s eyes, making James’s heart pound.

“You ready?” Thomas breathes against James. James nods and watches Thomas’s smile with a content smile.

“Where do you keep your lube and condoms babe,” Thomas asked as he sat up looking around the room.  _ Jesus, I could stay like that forever _ , James thought as he looked at Thomas’s toned back.

“In the bottom drawer of my left night stand.” He huffed out, still riled up from Thomas’s touch. Thomas leans across the bed and pulls open the door, looking back at James propped up. 

“Wait, Maddy, are you all riled up from just a little grinding I mean, I hope you aren’t going to be like a teenager and cum in your pants after just a little grinding,”Thomas flirts, fishing out the lube. Thomas acts like he forgot something and reaches over to his jeans on the floor. He fishes out a condom and sets it off to the side. 

“Wait Thomas don’t you need that?” James asks pointing to the condom on the side table. Thomas raises an eyebrow at James and smirks.

“Oh babe, you must’ve of never had sex before,” Thomas jokes, going back to what he was doing before.

“What makes you think that!” James exclaims all too quickly. Thomas looks suspiciously at James, Thomas laughs and shakes his head.

“Well we haven’t prepped you and I’m honestly not surprised you're a twenty five year old virgin,” Thomas says grabbing the lube and turning back to him. James scrunches up his nose and can feel his face getting redder. 

“Jeez, you’re so mean. I’m always busy with work and don’t really have time to have sex, and I’m not really a person that does one-night stands,” James defends himself, throwing up his hands. Thomas laughs and shakes his head.

“Oh so you’re  busy with work? Oh then I guess we’ll just have to stop,” Thomas shrugs with a big smug look on his face. James pushes himself up.

“What? No!” James says quickly. Thomas’s grin grows.  _ He’s messing with me _ , James decides.

“Aw, then I guess you’ll have to beg,” Thomas hums, leaning back towards James. James looks at Thomas with an annoyed expression.

“Are you being serious?” James chuckles softly. Thomas smirks at James, and looks him up and down.

“Definitely,”  Thomas reaches to James and kisses him. James’s face went red and he hesitated for a moment. He sighed, giving in. 

“Please Thomas?” James purrs, crawling towards Thomas and drapes himself over his shoulders. Thomas takes a deep breath and seems to get turned on. James starts sucking on the back of Thomas’s neck. “Please,” James whispers between his kisses. Thomas rolls his head back and moans.

“I can’t believe that I’m the one to take this precious boys flower, to pop his cherry, to-,” Thomas laughs softly, being cut off by James kissing along his jawline. James looks up at Thomas with excitement.  

“Enough with the similes, let’s go,” James purrs, going back to sucking on Thomas’s neck. A small moan escaped Thomas’s lips and James smirks. 

“Well get on your elbows and knees you’ll also have to drop the underwear,” James did as Thomas had told him. Thomas stands in front of him with a suggestive look.

“Can you hurry up? This is pretty embarrassing,” James whispers quickly.

“You didn’t seem very embarrassed when you were sucking on my neck a moment ago,” Thomas raises his eyebrow and smirks.

“Stop! You’re the one that told me to beg,” James whines as he covers his face. Thomas laughs in a low bubbly laugh.

“Don’t worry, it was hot,” Thomas hummed as he got down on his knees next to him, his fingers running along James’s back. Thomas simply chuckled and poured some lube into his hand. 

“Hurry up Thomas,” James whined as he wiggled around. He heard Thomas chuckle. James was a bit worried, but he felt safe with Thomas.  

“Okay, Babe relax I’m putting the first finger in. Trust me this will make it hurt less,” Thomas slowly circled his little pink hole, he then pushes in his slicked finger. A shiver went down James’s back and he took a deep breath in, holding the air. He pushed it in and out a few times and moved it around preparing him for a second finger. 

When Thomas deemed him ready he slid in another. He waited for him to get use to it. He started moving them in a scissoring motion. An mewl of pleasure along with James arching his back into the bed that even Thomas would agree that was just outright sinful.

“Hurry T-thomas.” James could feel himself melting in pleasure. He’s never came when he was untouched before but the way things were going right now he felt that it was going to happen. He felt a third finger enter him. He gently rocked against the fingers. He felt a sudden cold emptiness. An unstoppable whine came from his lips.

“I know babe just, uh, let’s reposition.” Thomas picked up James and sat him in his lap facing him, as he rested against the wall, he slid off his pants and boxers. He ripped open the condom wrapper and slid it on. “Okay now just lower yourself down on me,” Thomas said with hushed breath. James lowered himself down onto Thomas’s cock slowly getting use to just the tip at first, he finished lowering himself as he moaned.

“Thomas, I-I’m so full.” Without even checking to see if he was adjusted Thomas started bouncing James on his lap, moans escaped his lips but he muffled them in Thomas’s neck.  _ Shit _ , James thinks as he kisses along Thomas’s neck. The skin there is soft and warm. Thomas’s hand trailed down his stomach drawing patterns across his chest. Thomas continues his trail down and slowly jacks James off. 

Not more than a few moments later was James cumming in ropes across both of their chests. Thomas kept thrusting into James, breathing heavily into the crook of James’s neck. All of this combined made James become over stimulated. James pulled on his hair, his fingers getting tangled in the mess of tight curls. Thomas came as James pulled on his hair. James fell against Thomas both breathing heavily. Once both of their heartbeats and breathing returned to normal, Thomas spoke.

“Do you want to shower babe?” Thomas buried his nose in the crook of his neck. James simply nodded. Thomas removed himself from James and and got up. His chest was still sticky from James’s climax. He opened the door to be met with Hanni or as Thomas known her to be, Charlotte. He walked past her and to the bathroom. James could hear the shower start up and he covered himself up with the blanket. Thomas walked back to the bedroom to find James on the bed. Thomas smiles down at James. 

“Can you carry me Thomas?” James asked, watching Thomas sit down on the end of the bed. Thomas chuckled and studied James to see if he was serious.

“Yeah, I can,” Thomas pulls James into his arms, bridal style. James leans his head against Thomas’s chest and hums a little song. Thomas carries him to the shower and sets him down on one of the built-in stools. The water from the shower head beating against both of them.

“Can the baby wash himself?” Thomas asks playfully. James smirks and stands up and reaches for a bar of soap.

“I think I can,” James scrunched his nose up as he rubbed in the soap. Thomas shakes his head and rubs his skin. 

“I can’t believe you’re what? 25 and you were still a virgin,” Thomas pokes fun at James. He pouts down at the soap and mocks Thomas’s voice. “Aw come on Babe, I’m just messing with you,” Thomas reached from behind and hugs James. He turns around reaches out his and holds Thomas’s face. Thomas smiles and looks at James’s hand. His face suddenly turns concerned and he grabs at James’s hand. James looks down.  _ Shoot _ , James sighs and looks at the healed over scars along his wrist. 

“What are these?” Thomas looks up with shock and urgency. James looks off awkwardly.

“They’re scars,” James mumbles, barely audible over the water pattering on the shower’s walls and floors. Thomas runs his finger over the lines.

“James, why would you do something like this to yourself?” Thomas looks up at James with knit eyebrows and a worried frown. James looks down at his wrists.

“Thomas, they’re old, see they’re all healed over,” James points to the bumpy skin in lines. Thomas runs his thumb up and down the scars and kisses along the lines.  _ Why are you so sweet _ ? James asks silently. 

“James,” Thomas looks up from his wrists and looks deep into James’s eyes, “Promise me, promise me you’ll never do this again.” James watches Thomas careful and smiles at him. 

“I promise,” James nods. Thomas smiles and kisses James’s wrist one more time. They finish their shower. Thomas had dried him off like he was too scared to apply any real pressure, like he was afraid James would break. After Thomas had dried himself off he carried James back to bed. He wrapped them both up in the warm blankets, James wrapped around Thomas’s torso nuzzled into his chest. Both falling asleep to each others heartbeats. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow Thomas taking the poor boys flower. so r00d of you.   
> \- Navi


	20. The Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kinda short but the next arc will be good

James opens his eye. He pulls his head away from Thomas’s chest and shifts under his arm. James looks up at Thomas, his eyes are closed and his mouth is slightly open. His chest is rising and falling slowly. James smiles softly up at him.

It was mind boggling to James that he’d ever be in Thomas’s arms again. That he’d be so hopelessly in love with him again. James never thought he’d even talk to him again during high school, let alone kiss him. James was still unsure if he should’ve forgiven Thomas, but whenever he looked at Thomas the worries seemed to melt away. When hugged and kissed and laughed with Thomas he didn’t regret anything. Thomas was something he had wanted for a long time, and now that he had him (at least he thinks he did) he was happy. 

In high school he had been so happy when they started dating. In high school Thomas was this untouchable person, everyone thought he was perfect, so only the brave ones actually tried to fall for him. Apparently James was one of the brave ones. When they first started going out so many people were confused. Even his friends were, half of them didn’t believe him when he told them they were dating. He once heard a group of girls say “Why would Thomas go out with some freshman nobody”. 

While they were in a relationship he felt insecure, there was this small awkward freshman with the person that was essentially the prince of the school. He always felt like Thomas was so much better than him, that he deserved someone so much better than James. Thomas had always told him that he shouldn’t worry, because he wouldn’t date James if he didn’t like him. That always put James’s mind at ease, Thomas could do that for him. With only a few words he could calm James’s anxiety attacks or when he was overstressed and over-worked. 

After their unspoken breakup James got extremely depressed. At first it was little things, like sleeping days away, withdrawing from friends and family, and dropping things he loved. For a while he couldn’t go to the library without breaking down in tears. And when he was finally able to go back the library he couldn’t go anywhere near the polisci wing. He fell really deep into his depression a month after the whole situation. 

He stopped going to school for a week before his mom forced him to go to school. And when he was in school he was constantly paranoid that Thomas was right behind him. James tried to take the edge off of his pain. He tried so many things, alcohol (but he hated the morning after so he stopped trying), writing his feelings in notebooks (which helped, but he ended up burning all of them), and self-harming. The momentary distraction from his pain helped for him. His parents found out and shipped him off to therapy. After about four months he stopped harming and didn’t do it again. Though the scar still paint his skin. 

After he hit rock bottom he finally convinced himself to go to therapy, which surprisingly did help him. He was tired of pitying himself and decided to start working ten times harder on school. It did help him get through college quicker and definitely helped him get the job that he did. If Thomas hadn’t broken his heart, James wouldn’t be where he was today. He wouldn’t probably even  _ be _ with the person he’s with.

When James first came to this law firm and found out Thomas was the Thomas from high school he thought it was cruel form of karma. But now he was happy, no matter what happened. He was glad he was with Thomas, that he’d always be by his side. It had only been, like, two days since they started dating but it felt like he had loved Thomas forever. 

But no matter how happy he felt with Thomas he felt a looming feeling. The type of feeling you get when you’re watching a horror movie and you know the movie killer is right behind a corner. He felt like some big horrible thing would happen and just ruin this blissful happiness. Though no matter how strong James’s anxieties are whenever he sees Thomas’s smile- _ Jesus it’s one of the prettiest things in the world _ \- his worries just melt. 

Thomas stirs in his sleep and lazily opens an eye. “James? Are you awake?” Thomas looks down at James. 

“Yeah,” James smiles softly. Thomas snuggles into James. “Do you want to go and make some food?” James looks up. Thomas kisses the tip of his nose and smiles.

“Just a little longer,” Thomas squeezes James in his arms. James wrapped his arms around Thomas and smiles.  

“Okay,” James whispers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey in two weeks me and Hest are going to be at Anime Detour! So if y'all are weebs and going come see us. I'll be in cosplay for Otabek Altin on Saturday and Oikawa Tooru on Sunday! Hest is going casual. Anyway, we love all you kiddos!  
> \- Navi


	21. The Arrival of Miss Payne

Chapter 21

\------

“You changed clothes, then got back into bed? Who does that?,” James asks, ducking his head into his bedroom. Thomas lifts his head up and gazes up at James, a small smile growing across his face. James scoffs softly and steps into the room. 

“What is it this time?” James smirks. Thomas pushes himself up on his palms and looks up at James. James rolls his eyes and leans against the door frame. He’s started to notice that lately he’s had the tendency to copy the things that Thomas does,  _ I wonder if that’s normal? _ James thinks. Thomas gets off of the bed and walks over to James, pulling him into a big, warm hug.

“It just feels kinda weird,” Thomas laughs into James’s hair. James looks up at Thomas. 

“What do you mean?” James smiles. He’s been doing that more, smiling, it feel odd. He’s even smiling more than before the “Scandal on the 14th Floor” like having Thomas at close reach has really helped him perk up.

“I get this warm fluffy feelings whenever the love of my life comes in and tells me he made breakfast for me,” Thomas looks into James’s eyes with a caring smile. James laughs and hugs Thomas tighter. He smells like Old Spice and money, just like his house. 

“Do you want to go and eat?” James asks. Something in Thomas’s face changes, but only for a tenth of a second, it was so quick James wasn't sure he even really saw it. 

“Yeah, let’s go,” Thomas smiles, pulling James into the living room. Hanni looks up lazily, then lays her head back down. 

“Eggs?” Thomas asks, lifting his nose into the air like a dog or cat. James chuckles a bit and pushes ahead of Thomas, grabbing one of the plates and handing it him. Thomas takes it and leans down, pecking James on the cheek. 

“Is there anything we could watch? Any shows you’ve been watching recently?” Thomas asks, striding over to the couch. James follows shortly behind and curls up under Thomas’s arm. 

“I’ve been watching The X Files lately,” James says, grabbing the remote from the coffee table. Thomas stuffs a forkful of food into his mouth.

“You can be Scully and I’ll be Mulder,” Thomas says through chews. James looks over at Thomas and laughs. 

“Firstly didn’t your father tell you not to eat with your mouth full, and secondly do you want me to go into some alien-induced coma?” James smiles. Thomas chews with his mouth closed and laughs. Which was really just him blowing more air through his nose. Thomas gulps down his bite as James starts a new episode.

“But I’m the spontaneous, hot one that will do what he thinks is right, and you’re the pretty, smart one that believes things that are supported by facts. And we are destined to be together and be in love,” Thomas grins and pulls James closer. 

“Okay, Spooky,” James giggles. Thomas smiles, the end of his lips curling up slightly more. 

“Oooh, I like it,” Thomas laughs. James and Thomas eat their food and watch their show when Thomas starts whispering to the cat. “Charlotte, come here, come here kitty,” Thomas moves his arm away from James and pats his lap. Hanni, since her name isn’t Charlotte, doesn’t respond. 

“I think your cat hates me, she never responds to me,” Thomas pouts, watching Hanni’s tail swish around. James looks over nervously and laughs. Thomas notices and looks over at him with a confused look. “What?” Thomas laughs. James scratches at his chin and looks over at Hanni.

“Well, uhm, Charlotte isn’t exactly her name,” James explains sheepishly. Thomas tilts his head and shakes his head slightly. 

“Then what is it?” Thomas asks.

“Hannibal, Hanni for short,” James looks up at Thomas with an uncomfortable smile. Thomas squints at James with a confused smile.

“Like  _ Silence of the Lambs _ ?” Thomas chuckles, he sounded worried and confused. James nods. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Thomas laughs. James laughs.

“I thought you’d make fun of me,” James answers. Thomas laughs and shakes his head. 

“I wouldn’t.”

“You  _ were _ a pretty big jerk before you started liking me,” James points out, poking Thomas in the side. He chuckles and holds his side. 

“I guess that’s true, but still,” Thomas laughs. He looks James over and pulls him into his chest. “I don’t peg you as a horror movie fanatic,” Thomas jokes. James smiles up at Thomas and takes his hand.

“My dad and I used to watch a bunch of old horror movies, the first one we ever watched was  _ Silence of the Lambs _ . I wanted so badly to be Clairce that I started to carry around a cardboard cutout of a gun, even though it was just the letter ‘L’, and I would pretend like I was fighting bad guys,” James lays his head back on Thomas’s chest and looks up at him. “But I realized that wasn’t the type of person that could run around and shoot bad guys, mainly because of my moral code and asthma, so I decided to be one of the people that send them away,” James answers. Thomas smiles and leans his head onto James. 

“Wow, you’re too cute,” Thomas smiles, kissing the top James’s head. A ringing comes from James’s pocket and he pulls out his phone.  _ Go to work _ , the alarm says. James flashes the screen at Thomas and they start to get their coats on, James pushing open the door and motioning Thomas out. 

“Well, thank you m’dear,” Thomas winks as he walks through the door.

\--------

James hummed one of the songs Thomas showed him yesterday, “I was Made For Loving You” it’s a song by Kiss. Thomas walked around the apartment singing along to it and doing air guitar, James was trying not laugh, but failed. Thomas ended up smothering him and making him dance along. 

“James!” Thomas’s voice blares through the pager, “I need you to copy some papers.” James pushes up from his desk.  _ Still can’t just walk to the door to get me? _ , James sighs and walks to Thomas’s door, pushes it open and walks into his room. Thomas looks up and smiles.

“Hey Maddy,” Thomas sing-songs. James smiles back and waves.

“Hey Spooky, what’s the papers you need copied?” James asks, walking up and behind Thomas. Making sure not to touch the desk. 

“Here you go,” Thomas says, holding the papers up to James. He takes them and starts to walk out of the room. “Oh! Maddy, one more thing ,” Thomas says. James turns around and Thomas lays a hand on his shoulder and a hand on his waist and pulls him close, connecting their lips. Thomas seems cold again, maybe there’s something about Thomas. Like he’s a lizard, well not a lizard, but like he’s cold-blooded, where his body heat changes all the time. Thomas pulls away and lets go of James.

“Okay, you can go now,” Thomas winks. James covers his mouth and his eyes flicker up at Thomas.

“We’re at work, what if someone came in and saw us making out?” James asked in a hushed whisper. Thomas laughs and pushes back his hair.

“I’d be okay getting caught making out with you,” Thomas flirts. James glares over at him and crosses his arms.

“Not the response I was looking for,” James sighs. Thomas laughs, starting to make his way back to his desk.

“But it’s the true response,” Thomas shrugs, spinning around in his chair. “Plus, Maria and Eliza are always making out, so are Lafayette and Hercules, why can’t we?” 

“I’m not debating this with you, Thomas,” James sighs, opening the door and walks out. Thomas calls “Love you Maddy” as the door shuts, James walks for a second and turns back, he hesitates for second but continues. He gets to the copier room and opens the door to John standing at the printer waiting for all of the papers to finish. John looks behind him and smiles at James.

“Hey,” John smiles. James takes notice as he starts the copier, he looks John up and down. John squints at James and squirms under his gaze.

“You seem happy,” James says, turning back to the machine. John sighs and his shoulders slouch down. 

“I guess it’s good I was in drama club in high school,” John laughs dryly. James looks over his shoulder. “It’s still killing me, and I think I’m insane. I mean, why should I care about him? I shouldn’t,” John laughs dryly again and shakes his head, “But for some dumb reason I do.” Neither of them say anything for a long while. They sit in silence, listening to the copier and printers going off. 

“John, if I knew what to say, I would, but I don’t,” James looks over, “And I know it’s hard. And it’s not going to be easy in a long time. But you have to remember that you will find someone. You will.” John looks back at James and smiles weakly. 

“You always know what to say, don’t you James?” John smiles. James smiles back and shakes his head.

“ I never know, I just talk,” James laughs. John smiles and nods. 

“Sure,” John shakes his head and looks back to the machine. James’s copies finish and he makes his way back to Thomas’s office. James opens the doors and walks in. Thomas looks up with an annoyed expression, but his face brightens when he sees James.

“Back so soon?” Thomas calls. James smiles softly and walks to the front of the desk, making sure not to touch it. 

“Here, I got the copies you wanted,” James says, holding out the stack of papers. Thomas takes them, his fingers gliding across his hands. That, out of everything, made his heart beat faster. James had hugged Thomas, kissed him, he’s even gone farther than that, but somehow little touches are what set off his heart beat. 

“Thanks babe,” Thomas winks, dragging his eyes down to the papers. James bites his thumbnail and leans forward. He pulls Thomas’s chin up to him and kisses him. James pulls away and Thomas looks at him with shock. He laughs and shakes his head. 

“James Madison, you’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” Thomas chuckles. James sticks out his tongue and walks towards the door.

“Bye Tommy,” James hums, Thomas laughs in response. James smiles to himself as he sits down in his seat. James starts tapping away at his computer. The elevator door opens and James looks over his shoulder. The silver doors opens slowly and a pale blue dress, a cream sun hat, and pastel pink accents stand in the way. They step out and look up. Their dark skin and dark hair clash with the vibrant green eyes and red lips, James’s heart beats speeds up. 

“Dolley!!” James shouts and stands up quickly from his desk. Dolley smiles brightly from the elevator area and waves her hands.

“James!!!” Dolley yells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to Zelly for being cool.


	22. A Payne in the Ass

“Hey James could I get-uh-,” Thomas pauses as he opens the door and looks out. James is running towards some girl in a sundress and sun hat, and she’s running towards him. “Er,” Thomas says absently. James reaches the girl and effortlessly picks her up and spins her around, and neatly places her down in front of him. Now she’s facing towards Thomas, he can see more details about this stranger. She has dark skin with a heart-shaped face and a button nose. She has big red lips and green doll eyes with a tiny wing from her eyeliner. Her cheeks and nose are slightly red and her smile is a pure white. She’s taller than James and really thin, the dress fits her frame. 

She said something and James laughed, he snorted between his laughter which made both of them laugh even harder. He had a big bright smile, leaning his head back and covering his mouth as he laughed. A little green thing nestled in Thomas’s stomach. She reaches into her into her big sun bag and grabs out a notepad and a pen, scribbling something on there, she finishes the note and hands it James. He smiles and nods, folding it and putting it in his pocket. Thomas didn’t want to sit there and watch them laugh so hard. 

Thomas sighs and walks up behind James, glaring at her, with a polite smile plastered on his face. Thomas drapes his arms around James’s shoulders and leans his head down so he was about James’s height. James takes Thomas’s hands and smiles at him. It was one of those beautiful smiles that James hid from everybody. 

“Who’s this Maddy?” Thomas says with a fake gleefulness. James smiles at the girl. He slips out from Thomas’s arms and motions towards the girl. 

“Thomas, this is Dolley Paine an old friend,” James looks over at Thomas, “Dolley, this is my boyfriend Thomas Jefferson.” The girl looked a bit caught off guard by ‘boyfriend’ but quickly smiles again. Thomas did have to admit, his heartbeat picked up when James called him his boyfriend. He had waited so long for the title, even though the wait was because of him. 

“Nice to meet you,” the girl says lightly. Thomas smiles tightly and shakes the girl’s hand, her hands were weirdly soft, Thomas pulls his hand away and looks back down at James. He’s smiling at this girl.

The little green rock starts to control Thomas. He leans down and kisses James on the cheek, glaring at Dolley from the corner of his eye. James scrunches his shoulders up and smiles at the kiss, making Thomas’s heart flutter again. The girl looks away with something like annoyance or embarrassment. James wriggles out of Thomas’s grasp and turns towards him, still hand-in-hand. 

“Dolley’s going to be in town for a while and I think she’s going to stay at my place, is that okay?” James asks. Thomas looks down at James with a tiny frown, then looks up at the girl. Another green rock settles in his stomach and he looks blankly down at James. He couldn’t, more like wouldn’t, show James how much this bothered him.

“It’s your house, so do what you want,” Thomas says evenly, turning back towards his office. 

“Thomas?” James asks. Thomas doesn’t turn back around, he just keeps walking, trying to keep a straight face. “What are you doing? You can stay out here and talk,” James half-laughs. The offer sounded embarrassed, which makes Thomas’s fingers twitch. 

“I need to get to work on an assignment Angelica gave me,” Thomas answers, still with that even tone. He opens his door and walks in, he shuts the door carefully and his hands start to shake. His heart is beating fast and he’s frowning and he feels sick. He feels overwhelmed. Thomas takes a big gulp, his dry throat makes that difficult though. 

_ Follow me _ , Thomas’s mind repeats,  _ Please just follow me in here. Leave that girl in there and follow me, please _ . Thomas walks to his desk and sits down, placing his palms on his desk, trying to stop them from moving.  _ Come on, come on, just walk in here. Please, please, God I’ll never ask for anything else from you. Just please _ , Thomas pleas silently. 

A bubbly laugh comes from the hallway and it feels like the air is knocked out of Thomas. He looks down at his hands and watches them carefully. His brain hurries to find reasons James didn’t follow, but Thomas’s insecurities knock them all down. Thomas’s fingers feel tingly and his throat is dry. 

The office door swings open and Thomas looks up. He hoped that it’d be James, but nope, it was Alexander. He involuntarily groaned at the sight of the man. Alex pretended like he didn’t notice anything and walked up to the front of his desk and held out some papers, before Thomas could take them Alex brought them back. Thomas glares up at Alex and notices an annoyed look on his face too. 

“You know I might be in a position to ask, but are you okay?” Alex asks, raising an eyebrow and shifting his weight. Thomas studied his face,  _ I  _ can’t  _ be that obvious _ , he thought. 

“I’m fine, Alexander,” Thomas answers coldly. Alex scoffs and has an expression like he knows more than he lets on. Thomas watches him as he leans over the desk and leans up to his ear.

“Did you see the hottie out in the hallway?” Alex whispers, pointing back towards Dolley. Alex stands back up and looks down at Thomas with a better-than-you-expression. Thomas didn’t respond he just sighed and looks down at his desk. Alex laughs and shrugs.

“Anyway, Angelica wants you to go over her analysis on this case, the manilla folder has the case details, and the ones with the--” Thomas starts to zone out and his eyes wander. Alex throws some papers in front of Thomas and he looks down, trying to focus on the papers, but again his mind wanders. Thomas looks over at James and watches him as he laughs at what the girl says and little pebbles fall into his stomach. 

He notices James look back at him with a bit of a worried expression.  _ He either still doesn’t trust me or he actually wanted to come in here. Though I doubt it’s the latter _ , Thomas decides. Thomas barely smiles, looks down, then up at Alex and nods.

“Yeah okay, I can get it done by tomorrow,” Thomas answers taking the rest of the papers from Alex and starting to thumb through them.

“I’ll tell her,” Alex answers as he walks to the door. He steps out and smirks at Thomas. “And I’m sure you want this closed,” Alex chirps. Thomas stares up at Alex with a disgusted look as he closes the door. The door clicks and Thomas looks down at his assignment. He scoffs and opens the manilla folder. 

 

\--------

 

“Hey Maddy!” Thomas calls, jogging a bit faster to catch up with him. Thomas looks around and doesn’t see Dolley. “Where’s your friend?” Thomas asks, he could feel his breath hitch as he asked his question. James grabs the strap of his bag and smiles up at Thomas.

“Hi Thomas, and Dolley drove over to my place, she should be over there by now,” James says as he checks his watch. Thomas’s breath felt like it left his body and another stone was added to that pile in his stomach. 

“Can I drive you to your place?” Thomas asks, waving at Eliza. James looks up at Thomas with a confused and he scrunches up his nose. 

“I have my own car, we don’t need to,” James said, looking back in front of them. Thomas sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. 

“Please?” Thomas asks, taking James’s hand. James looks down at their hands and then up at Thomas. He sighs and shakes his head.

“Sure, Thomas,” James smiles softly. Thomas smiles back at him and squeezes his hand. They walk to Thomas’s car and hop in. Thomas starts the car and pulls out of the parking lot and starts driving to James’s apartment. They sit in silence for a few seconds.

“James how do you know Dolley? Like where do you know her from?” Thomas asks, looking over for a second. James looks over from the window and turns his head to look at Thomas with a confused look.

“An old acquaintance,” James shrugs. Thomas looks over and he could feel his hands get shaky, he tapped his index finger on the steering wheel.

“But who is she really?” Thomas insists, James looks over and squints at him. Thomas resists the urge to look at James. 

“What do you mean by ‘really’?” James asks, his voice going high. Thomas sighs and looks at the steering wheel for a second.

“I mean picking her up and spinning her around is a pretty warm welcome for an acquaintance,” Thomas sighs, looking at James from the corner of his eye. James shrinks down and looks away like a puppy when they’re in trouble. James looks back out the window and doesn’t say anything. 

“James.” Thomas insists, not looking away from the road. James sighs and shakes his head slowly.

“We were close friends in college,” James answers. Something about the way James said ‘close’ rubbed Thomas the wrong way. 

“And what does  _ that _ mean?” Thomas stares over at him. James chuckles and raises an eyebrow.

“Are you asking me what college is?” James jokes. His smile fades when Thomas doesn’t laugh or smile back. Thomas pushes back at his hair and watches the road. James doesn’t say anything. 

“We used to date, in college, it was a long time ago,” James answers smalley. Thomas laughs in disbelief and lays his head back against his head rest. James looks away and Thomas looks out his window.

“Great, your pretty ex is staying at your house,” Thomas looks back at the road, “Just amazing.” Thomas sighs as he pulls into the apartment building’s parking lot. Neither of them get out of the car. 

“Why did you two break up,” Thomas asks, still with that breathless tone. James looks over and starts to mess with his hands. 

“We graduated, we drifted apart, it was kind of inevitable,” James answers. Thomas laughed dryly and stared up at the ceiling of his car. 

“Great, great, great,” Thomas pushes his palms into the socket of his eyes, “Dolley, your ex, who you have a great past with and broke up without any bad blood, is staying at your apartment. Okay great, amazing,” James sighs and starts unbuckling his seatbelt. 

“You know what? I’m not going to fight about this with you. Come one, let’s go,” James says, opening the car door and stepping out he slams the door shut behind him. James turns back to the car and knocks on the window, Thomas rolls down the window. He ducks his head down to look at James.

“What do you mean ‘come on’?” Thomas asks. James hangs his hand on the car door and looks in, staring at him. Thomas resists the urge to reach forward and kiss him. 

“Aren’t you coming in with me?” James asks. Thomas looks at the steering wheel, then back up at James. 

“Bye, James,” Thomas says, starting the car up again. James leans back from the car and watches as Thomas pulls out of the parking lot. As Thomas drives out of view he looks in the rear-view mirror and sees James standing in the parking lot watching him. Thomas shakes his head and drives off. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!! These next few chapters will be pretty angsty (sorry ahead of time because I'm terrible at angst) so get ready for that ish!   
> Also question: Your thoughts on Dolley?  
> -Hest


	23. Sure You Will

Thomas wakes up, pulling a hand down his face. He rolls over and remembers James wouldn’t be there. He bites his lip and gets out of bed, starting to make his way down stairs. His mind felt groggy and his eyes felt weird. 

Even though it’s only been a few days since James and Thomas had started dating it felt weird to not have James next him. To have him wake up and give him a good-morning kiss, to even roll out from under his arm. All of it felt weird to be missing. Thomas sighs as he goes through the living room, into the kitchen. Benny raises his head and his tail swishes lazily in the air when he sees Thomas. He smiles and kneels down next to Benny, running his hand down his back. Benny licks his arm and Thomas laughs, standing back up and walking to his phone which is plugged into his charger. 

No notifications are on his screen, not a missed call or text from James. Thomas frowns and opens his phone, checking if the phone just didn’t show the notifications. Still no calls or texts. Thomas stares at the phone, unsure if he should call James, or if he’d even answer. Thomas shakes his head and calls James. The phone rings, and rings, then it’s picked up. 

“Hello?” a female voice comes from the phone. Thomas breathes out and stares down at his hand.  _ Did Dolley just answer James’s phone? Should I even ask? Maybe if I hang up now she won’t say anything _ , Thomas thinks. “Hello?” the voice calls again. Thomas snaps out of his trance and shakes his head.

“Hey, is James there?” Thomas asks slowly as he starts making some cereal. Dolley doesn’t answer for a few seconds. 

“He is, but he’s changing, is there something you want me to tell him?” Dolley asks. Thomas pushes back his hair and tips his head back.  _ Shit, I can’t tell her to tell him that I missed him this morning, and I’m not going to sit and wait on the phone until James is done _ , Thomas thinks. 

“Uh, no, it’s-it’s fine I’ll tell him later,” Thomas answers. He takes his cereal over to his table and sits down. Dolley doesn’t respond. Something about how Dolley answered his phone made Thomas really uneasy. This whole thing made him uneasy.

“Who is it?” a voice comes from the other side of the conversation. Thomas’s heartbeat speeds up and he quickly hangs the phone up. Thomas stares at his phone with wide eyes, trying to calm down. Thomas took a deep breath and started eating his breakfast.  _ I’ll just talk to him at work _ , Thomas decides. 

\-------

“Hi Thomas,” James says, peaking his head into Thomas’s office. Thomas drags his eyes up to James and smiles. 

“Hey James,” Thomas answers. James frowns and walks into his office, shutting the door behind him. “What?” Thomas asks nervously. James walks up in front of his desk. 

“Did you call me this morning?” James asks, wringing out his hands. Thomas laughs and looks away from him.

“Yeah. I did, but Dolley answered,” Thomas answers, looking back down at the papers he was reading. James looks down at Thomas and frowns again.

“I’m sorry, I was changing clothes, uhm, is there something you wanted to tell me?” James asks, his voice seemed anxious and shaky. Thomas looks up at James and smiles softly.  _ I might be jealous about this, but I don’t want James to feel like crap because of it _ .

“No, I just wanted to call you,” Thomas answers. James looks back to Thomas and smiles weakly. Thomas smiles back. 

“Okay, well, bye,” James says, turning back towards the door. 

“Bye,” Thomas looks up from his papers and smiles. James doesn’t smile back. 

\-------

Thomas looks up at the clock near his door:  _ 11:03 _ . It was about time for lunch break, he pulled some money from his desk, which was just a bunch of five and ten dollar bills. He pushes up from his desk and makes his way to the door.

“Hey James do you-,” Thomas stops as he leaves steps out from his office, standing between his door and his office. James stands, smiling, with Dolley near the elevator. He’s holding a small brown paper bag and smiling brightly. Dolley is standing with a tank top and shorts with a big, proud smile. 

“I remember you loved those red fish gummies so I thought I’d buy you some. But I went overboard and ended up buying lunch, so I decided to bring it to you, like old times!” Dolley smiles down at him. James opens the bag and sifts through the bag. 

“I’m surprised you remember all of that stuff!” James says, in awe of the lunch, “Thank you! This is so sweet! I love it!” Thomas’s heart sank when he said ‘love’. Thomas scoffs and his eyes move between the girl and James. Dolley looks up, past James, and smirks when she sees Thomas watching them. It was a mischievous, better-than-you type of smirk. Thomas looks down at the bag with a dissatisfied frown, then looks up at James. He had this beautiful glimmer in his eyes and a big grin.  Thomas takes a deep breath and starts making his way past the two. James doesn’t say hi, so Thomas doesn’t. 

“James I was wondering if you’d like to hang out with me after work! I heard about this awesome restaurant downtown,” Dolley asks as Thomas passes them. Thomas held his breath, waiting for James’s response. 

“Yeah! Sounds like fun!” James answers. Thomas stops dead in his tracks and turns his head to look at them. James has his back to Thomas, and Dolley flicks her eyes up at him. Thomas sighs, another green stone settling in his stomach, and turns back to where he was going.

“Great! I’ll pick you up from work!”  

\------

“Thomas!” James calls, running from the building towards Thomas’s car. Thomas stops and looks up at James. He was out of breath and his tie was rippling behind him as he ran. He caught up to Thomas and knelt down, trying to catch his breath.

“Hey, just so you know Dolley’s taking me home,” James puffs out between deep breaths. Thomas looks down at James with a face that said “really? REALLY?”, but James doesn’t mention it.

“I already know, have fun at the restaurant,” Thomas says blankly, starting to walk back to his car. James doesn’t respond. Thomas squeezes his hands into fists.

“Oh,” James breathes, “Okay, well, I’ll call you later.” Thomas throws up and hand and gets in his car, not looking back. Once Thomas gets into his car he lets out a deep breath, leaning his head back onto the headrest. 

“Sure you will,” Thomas whispers sarcastically to himself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, I'm a complete mess!! I forgot to add some things to this chapter, so I'm reuploading this the 24 (which is a new chaspter), and 25! So yeah, you can disregard this!!  
> -Hest


	24. Boiling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I forgot to upload this chapter! Sorry!!

“Hey Thomas,” James calls brightly as he walks into Thomas’s room. Thomas looks up from his papers with a frown. James stops when he sees the look on Thomas’s face. “Are you okay?” James asks with a confused tone. Thomas looks back down at his papers. 

“How was yesterday?” Thomas asks with a cold and even tone. James smiles again, making Thomas frown again.

“It was great! We ate escargot, it was disgusting, but that’s besides the point,” James laughs. Thomas doesn’t respond, he just makes a few notes on the paper. “And then we got to eat some apple pie and ice cream, it was amazing!” James explains, coming closer to Thomas’s desk. Thomas still doesn’t respond and silence fills the air again.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” James asks. Thomas looks up at him and frowns, making James cock his head to the side.  _ Wow he may be cute, but he’s also pretty forgetful. _

“Do you not remember?” Thomas asks. James raises an eyebrow and scrunches up his nose.  _ At least he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, it relieves it a teensy-tinsy bit. _

“Remember what?” James asks. Thomas sighs and drops his pen onto his desk and leans back. He looks up at the ceiling and laughs.

“Wow,” Thomas smiles in disbelief, pushing back his hair. “Do you remember how you promised me you’d call?” Thomas looks at James. He looks off and and smiles awkwardly. James rubs his arm up and down. 

“Yeah, sorry, we came back super late last night and I didn’t think you were awake, so I just didn’t call,” James explains. Thomas raises his eyebrows and leans back over his papers, starting to skim again.

“Well, I didn’t end up sleeping, so,” Thomas trailed off, flicking his eyes up at James. James furrowed his eyebrows and started wringing his hands. He looked guilty, which didn’t make Thomas feel any better. 

“I’m sorry Thomas, really,” James looks down at Thomas and frowns. Thomas frowns back.  _ I’ve noticed that I’ve been frowning more and more _ .

“No, you don’t need to check in with me all the time, you have your own life, so do whatever you want. It’s not up to me,” Thomas shrugs, trying his hardest to have a blank expression. Thomas knew that both of them knew he was jealous, but he pretended like he was, which was really hard for Thomas to do. 

He just wanted to stomp over to Dolley and tell her that James was his and that she should stop asking  _ his _ boyfriends out on dates to nice, romantic restaurants. But something deep, deep in Thomas knew that somehow James would side with Dolley. And he’d probably get yelled at because he was “attacking” Dolley or whatever. He had even debated talking James into staying at his place, but he also knew that wouldn’t fly. 

“Thomas, I’m-,” James starts. Thomas holds up his hand and shakes his head. He felt like he wasn’t even in control of his body at this point. He wanted to talk to James about this and how much he didn’t like Dolley being around James, but he knew that wouldn’t fly either. 

“Do what you want, what you do isn’t up to me,” Thomas says. James rubs his arm awkwardly and looks away. Thomas felt bad for the look on James’s face but he was also mad enough not to say anything. 

“Okay, well, bye Thomas,” James whispers, turning towards the door and walking out. 

“Bye.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cut me a break I haven't had a full 8 hours of sleep for like two months...  
> -Hest


	25. The Facade Unravels

The clock reads  _ 5:21 _ , Thomas was supposed to leave twenty-one minutes ago, but he was working on a case, petty theft, and just wanted to finish it. He might not want to admit it, but he was also avoiding James. Thomas sighs and starts putting his things away. He decides he’ll work on the paper he was looking through as he goes so he has less work tomorrow. Thomas walks up to his door and stands, his hand on the doorknob, he breathes out. 

Thomas opens his office door, with his satchel slung over his shoulder. James quickly stands up from his desk and gathers his papers into a folder. Thomas scribbles some notes on his paper and flicks his eyes up at James. James has a pen tucked behind his ear and he’s wearing a sweater vest over his white button up. 

“Hey, Thomas!” James smiles, grabbing his papers and computer bag. Thomas stops and turns towards James, smiling softly down at him. James gets all of his things together and they start to walk towards the elevator. James presses the elevator button and adjusts the cuff of his sleeve. 

“Last night Dolley and I were playing Monopoly until like 2 in the morning,” James smiles at the steel elevator door, “It was great!” Thomas doesn’t respond, the smile he had seconds ago quickly disappearing. The elevator door opens and they both step in, Thomas still writing notes on the papers. James presses the ‘1’ button and the elevator door closes. 

“And she got super drunk and she was laughing so much,” James smiles. Thomas can feel another green stone settle in his stomach. “I don’t think you understand how much I  _ love _ her laugh!” James giggles. Thomas’s heart sinks and his cheeks go hot. The rocks in his stomach weren’t just burning, they were on fire at this point. 

“James, I couldn’t give less of a fuck about Dolley,” Thomas yells. James whips his head to look at Thomas and frowns. Thomas couldn’t hold back his anger and was yelling, letting all of his feelings fall into the air. 

“Excuse me?” James raises his voice. Thomas sighs angrily and rubs his temples, closing his eyes, trying to control his anger. But it didn’t work, the thought of drunk Dolley hanging all over James pissed him off.

“I’m fucking done listening about how much you  _ LOVE _ Dolley,” Thomas shouts. James scoffs and rolls his eyes. That made him even more pissed off. 

“And what does that mean?” James asks, his voice tired and like he was talking to some misbehaving child. Like he was a chore. 

“Well, you’ve said like three times that you love Dolley, which is more than you’ve told me! And you haven’t even told me you loved me since we started dating! You’ve only told me you love me when you’re super angry or super sad, do you even really love me at all?!” Thomas yells, throwing up his hands. James scrunches up his nose and moves his head back, like  he’s disgusted by Thomas. 

“Thomas,” James mumbles. Thomas was too fired up to even really listen to James, he just continued his ramblings. 

“No, listen here, ya dingus! It may be a surprise to you, but I actually take the word ‘love’ very seriously! When I say it, I mean it,” Thomas yells, his throat starting to go rough. “And I’ve been telling you that I love you everyday since we started dating, and you haven’t told me  _ once _ ! And that feels really shitty! It makes me think you don’t love me,” Thomas he spits the words out, his face contorting in anger. Thomas feels like he’s going to explode, his blood feels like it’s boiling, and his fingers start to tingle. 

“Thomas, you put me through Hell, you don’t have any room to be all angry that I’m hanging out with a friend!” James shouts. Thomas scoffs and shakes his head as the elevator dings open. They step out and speed-walk towards the exit.  Neither of them respond to Eliza as she says bye, the just walk out, staring daggers at each other. 

“She’s not a fucking friend, you two used to be a couple! Plus you guys went on a date a few days ago!” Thomas yells as they leave the building cold air nipping at Thomas’s cheeks. It’s November so the cold is just to seep into the weather, but even with the breeze Thomas still feels hot from anger. 

“What date?” James cocks his head and looks down, then looks back up when he realizes what Thomas is talking about. “The restaurant?” James asks, looking back up at him. Thomas stops and shakes his head at James.  _ How could someone so smart, still be so dumb? _

“Duh! I mean that place was like what? Four stars on Yelp?” Thomas shakes his head again. James scrunches up his nose and furrows his eyebrows. He looks like he realizes something and stares up at Thomas. 

“Are you  _ jealous  _ of Dolley?” James points out. Thomas scoffs and rolls his eyes. 

“Thomas Jefferson doesn’t get jealous,” Thomas gasps. James shifts his weight onto one hip and crosses his arms. He looked at him watched him with a look that said “you’re joking, right?”.

“Well it sounds like you're jealous.” James raises and eyebrow and bends his neck a tiny bit. The better-than-you look made Thomas even angrier. 

“I’m not jealous,” Thomas insists. He can feel his face heating up from James calling him out. But Thomas  _ wasn’t  _ going to admit it to him. 

“Sounds fake to me.” James scoffs. Thomas gives an annoyed grunt and rolled his eyes. 

“Well you never act the same way with me that you do with her, I haven’t seen you laugh so hard that you snort which I know you do, only because you were doing that with her. I haven’t gotten to experience you when you’re truly James Madison.” His anger slowly faded and his words starting dripping with heartbreak. James looked up at him, his anger melting away too. James turns away and starts walking to his car. 

“James,” Thomas’s voice cuts off from the sob that almost comes out. His throat seems tight and hot and tears swell up in his eyes. James opens his door and looks at Thomas. 

“Thomas,” James looks down at the pavement, “Don’t-don’t call me tonight.” James gets into his car and pulls out of the parking lot, leaving Thomas standing by himself. Thomas looks down at the pavement and at his polished shoes. He takes a deep breath and walks into his car. 

Thomas stares at his steering wheel, not moving to put the keys in. Thomas sits blankly staring at nothing. A hot tear rolls down his cheek, it falls off his face and lands in his hand. Thomas wipes at his eyes and cheeks. More start falling and soon he’s a sniffling mess in the front seat. Thomas doesn’t feel anything, he just sits numbly in the expensive car. He’s feels sad, but it’s the kind of sad that nips around the edges, the numbness in his fingers, his lips, his cheek. It was overwhelming and his head felt like it was spinning. His mind was racing, but he couldn’t grasp onto any of the thoughts. Thomas stuck his keys in the ignition and started the car. 


	26. A Different Perspective

James pulls into the apartment’s parking lot, he turns off his car and pulls his phone out. Scrolling through the contacts list, his thumb hovers over Thomas’s contact.  _ I can’t call him now, he probably wouldn’t even answer _ , James shakes his head and continues down until he gets to the S’s.  _ Eliza Schuyler-Reynolds _ , he clicks it and the phone starts to ring. 

“Hi James,” Eliza’s cheery voice answers. James sniffles and rubs at his nose. His eyes feel gross from crying. 

“Hey,” James responds, his voice sounded tired and dry and shaky. Eliza must’ve noted this because it took her a second to respond. 

“What happened?” Eliza asks. She talks like a mom, she has one of those soft, melodic type of voices. It’s really calming, like you could listen to it and fall asleep. 

“Uhm, Thomas and I got in a fight,” James answers, pulling at the sleeves of his shirt. Eliza mumbles something but James can’t hear it. 

“Why?” Eliza half-whispers. She wasn’t speaking normally, but she wasn’t whispering, it sounded like she was talking to a dying animal, as morbid as that sounds. 

“Uh, you know about Dolley and how she’s staying at my place?” James asks, sniffling loudly again. Eliza makes a confused sound. 

“She’s staying at your place?” Eliza asks, she sounded kind of breathless. 

“Yeah?”

“Oh, well, okay?” Eliza pauses, processing this, “Anyways, continue.” James puts his free hand on the steering wheel and taps against the leather awkwardly. 

“I was going to ride home with him and hang out, I’m not sure, but I was talking about Dolley and everything we’ve been doing. And he got super jealous, and started yelling at me about how much I love Dolley and stuff,” James explains as he watches his finger bump against the steering wheel .

“What started the fight?” Eliza asks, her voice going serious. James sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. 

“Uhm, I was talking about how last night Dolley got drunk and we started to play Monopoly and I was talking about how much I love her laugh and he started yelling at me,” James sighs, rubbing his thumb up and down his thigh. He was fidgety and couldn’t keep his hand in one place. 

“What was he yelling about?” Eliza asks. She sounds like a guidance counselor at a high school, her voice assertive but also subdued. 

“He was talking about how I never told him I love him,” James’s voice falters when he says ‘love’, “and how I was always saying I love Dolley.” James looks into the rear-view mirror, pulling at his cheeks and eyes. His eyes were rimmed red, and even since a young age he’d do that in some attempt to make it look like he wasn’t crying. 

“Well, do you?” Eliza asks calmly. James snaps his attention towards his lap, his eyes wide.  _ How many times  _ have  _ I told him I love him _ , James wonders,  _ I mean I think it  _ all  _ the time but do I say it _ ? He bites his thumbnail, and taps his foot against the car floor. “James? Are you still there?” Eliza asks over the phone. 

“I mean, I don’t know, I guess I was. But I haven’t seen her in years so I’m just excited, or something,” James tries to explain, but he was so nervous about it he couldn’t think properly. His heart beat starts to pick up as he waits for Eliza’s response. 

“James, let’s put this into perspective,” Eliza takes a breath, “What if Thomas started hanging out with an ex again and whenever you guys talked he said he loved something about them? I mean, how would it make you feel?” James looks back down at his hands and thinks for a few moments.  _ It would feel terrible, _ James thinks. 

“I would be jealous,” James admits. Eliza makes an agreeing sound. James sighs. “I’ll fix this Eliza, he’s too petty to solve the problem. So,” James trails off. 

“Okay, good, I’ll call you later,” Eliza says, you can almost hear the smile in her voice, “Text me if you go and talk to him.” James says okay and bye and he hangs up the phone. He takes a deep breath and looks up at the top of his car. He started planning how he’d talk to Thomas when a knock came from the passenger window. James looks over and sees Dolley bent over, looking into the car. James smiles and rolls down the window, Dolley ducks her head in and throws up a peace sign. 

“Hey, do you want to head over to Founding Mall? I think there’s a food court and I am  _ starving _ ,” Dolley smiles, popping open the car lock and jumping into the car. James looks over for a second and smiles. 

“Yeah, okay,” James nods, starting the car up. Dolley beams at him and buckles in. James pulls up his phone and quickly texts Eliza “heading down to Founding Mall with Dolley” he puts his phone away and pulls out of the parking lot. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey!! I'm going to try and get a bunch of chapters out (because we have a surprise ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° ) ) SO get ready for that! ALSO Navi and I are proud to say we have 200 kudos!! Like wow!! HOw?!?! SO thank you so so so much for anybody that has kudoed this!! Also, I'll take this time to also thank the people that comment on like every update, besides it being hilarious or just amazing in general, it kind of helps us gauge if we're steering the story a good way! SO T H A N K Y O U!!  
> -Hest
> 
> PS: The next chapter is going to be super long!!


	27. Super Secret Agent, Thomas Jefferson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd suggest listening to "Happier" by Ed Sheeran on repeat as you read this, because that's how I wrote this entire chapter.

Thomas pushes back his hair and stares down at his hands.  _ Maybe I’m just over-reacting to the situation? But it  _ is  _ his ex, and she’s obviously trying to make me jealous. And they went out on a date to a super romantic restaurant. But James wouldn’t intentionally do that, would he?  _ Thomas’s phone bings at him and makes him jump. He quickly picks his phone up, hoping for a text from James, but it’s from Eliza.

**Dolley, James, Founding Mall. Go and spy on them,** the text reads. Thomas stares at his phone screen with a confused look. Whatever it meant, Thomas frowned at James and Dolley’s name being side-by-side.  _ Wow what am I? Twelve? Who gets jealous about people’s names being together _ , Thomas rolls his eyes. 

**What does this even mean?** Thomas texts quickly. It only takes mere seconds for Eliza to respond to his question.  _ Thank God, I’d probably worry myself sick if it took longer than two minutes _ . 

**James and Dolley are on some weird date-thing. Go spy on them, it’s at Founding Mall, wear a disguise or something** , Thomas’s heart beat pick up, whether it be from jealousy or from his sense of hopelessness, he wasn’t sure.  _ Thomas, look at your situation, your boyfriend is on some date with his ex and you’re sitting around doing nothing. Are you going to fight this lying down? _ Thomas asks himself.  _ Aw HELL No! _

**Thanks for the tip** , Thomas types as he jumps over the couch and starts running to the staircase. Eliza responds with the thumbs up emoji as Thomas lunges up the stairs.  _ Dammit, run faster.  _ By the time he reaches the top of the stair case he’s breathing hard. He turns a corner and sprints down a long hallway.  _ Damn me and my big house, did it really need to be this big? _

Thomas throws open his door and runs in, he looks down at his clothes, the same ones he wore during work. He peels off his shirt and rummages through his closet for one of his old battered University of Paris sweatshirts, it’s grey with the the UoP logo on the chest surrounded by the the school’s name. He grabs a pair of nice jeans and throws the clothes on. Thomas looks into the tall mirror and shakes his head.  _ He’d notice me, I’m fucking huge and who else would have this hair? _ Thomas starts going through his hats and pulls out a black snapback and pulls it on, he also fishes out a pair of black sunglasses and puts those on too. 

_ It’s better, ah jeez, I need to go! _ Thomas thinks as he makes a mad dash to the door and starts sliding down the stairs. He gets to his front door and throws open the door, simultaneously unlocking his car. He dives into his car and pulls out of his drive way, starting to make his way to Founding Mall.  _ Jesus why is the speed limit so low? Damn the law of this nation _ , Thomas broods as he drives a degree under the speed limit. 

\-------

Thomas unbuckles his seatbelt and hops out of his car, trying to calm his racing pulse. The mall was more packed than he had expected.  _ Shit, what if I can’t find him? _ Thomas panics as he starts up the pot-hole filled parking lot. Thomas gets to the front door and throws it open, he can see James and Dolley sitting at table in the food court from the door.  _ Wow, anticlimactic _ , Thomas thinks. His heartbeat picks up as he sees James laugh, head tilting back. Thomas awkwardly pretends like he’s supposed to be there, with the bill of his hat pulled down and his hands in his pockets. He picks a table, a few tables away from James, and pulls his phone out.

He pretends like he’s waiting for someone, looking at the door, smiling down at his phone, looking around. But his eyes were really on James and Dolley, she’d say something and he’d laugh, and Thomas’s heart would drop. A few times he could’ve  _ sworn _ he’d heard his name, but every time he looked up Dolley was talking. Thomas half-wanted James to see him and run up to him, but he also didn’t want to get caught.  _ I feel bad for spying on him, but I’m more worried about  James.  _

Dolley suddenly stands up and points in Thomas’s direction. Thomas’s heartbeat picks up and he thought he was caught, he pulled his hat down in a fetal attempt at hiding himself. She was talking loud enough to hear what she was saying “cupcakes….before….remember….let’s go”. Thomas peaked behind him and saw a small cupcake shop, which relieved him. Dolley grabbed James’s wrists and pulled him over to the shop. Thomas wanted to march up to her and pull her hand off of James and yell at her, but didn’t because it’d obviously blow his cover.

Once they were both in the store Thomas slowly walked past the store, pretends like he sees something he wants to buy, and walks in. The walls are painted in pink and white stripes with a few glass tables, everything seemed pink and fluffy. With all of the frilly decorations, it was pretty suffocating. Up at the front was a glass display case with an assortment of cupcakes with a frilly lady standing at her desk. She was like a Paula Deen rip-off with her cheeks dimpled and her big, hair sprayed hairdo. James and Dolley are kneeling side-by-side at the showcase, pointing at different cupcakes. Thomas scurries over to look at the cook books and knick-knacks, his back turned to the two. He was close enough hear them talking. 

“I think we should get a half-dozen cupcakes,” James says. Thomas hears Dolley laugh. Thomas peeks back at them a bit.

“How many cupcakes are you going to eat?” Dolley jokes. James sticks his tongue out at her and laughs. Thomas scrunches up his nose and looks back at the things on a table.

“No, I’m saving them for later,” James smiles. It’s that beautiful smile, but this time wider and brighter.  _ His smile’s twice as wide as when he’s with me _ , Thomas thinks. 

“How about red velvet?” James looks over to Dolley, one hand pointing to a batch of red velvet cupcakes with white frosting and a square or dark chocolate on top.  _ Ah, it looks so good, I love red velvet… _

“Oooh, the sexy cupcake, whoever you’re giving that to better be wearing some nice underwear,” Dolley nudges James in the side and he laughs, his cheeks going a bit red. 

“Shhh, shut up,” James giggles.  _ He laughs so much more with her, _ Thomas thinks. 

“Aw, I’m just giving you a tough time,” Dolley winks. James laughs again, making Thomas’s heart crack. 

“Well, don’t then,” James exclaims, standing up. Dolley and James tell the clerk what cupcakes they want and the lady puts them into a little white box. Dolley reaches a credit card out and James shoos her hand away. 

“I’ll pay, don’t worry,” James beams. His smile seemed extra big and his eyes seem like they’re glowing. Thomas’s heart cracks more. Dolley rolls her eyes and scoffs, putting her card back into her purse. The lady hands them the cupcakes and they leave the cupcake shop, with Thomas behind them. Thomas looks down at the floor, every once and awhile looking up to see where they’re going.

James points to a little shop on the other side of the mall, and bright smile plastered on his face and a twinkle in his eye. Dolley laughs as they start to walk over to the store.  _ He looks so happy, so much happier than when he’s with me _ , Thomas thinks. They walk into one of the stores attached to the rest of the stores, Thomas only a few feet behind them. It’s a little pet store named  _ Chews n’ Stuff _ . James and Dolley start to look around at the fish tanks, stopping at the goldfish, the glow-in-the-dark fish, and the betta fish. 

Thomas watches the amazed and blissful look on James’s face, this beautiful expression Thomas has never seen.  _ He looks so happy with her _ , Thomas thinks as James tips his head back in laughter again.  _ Maybe he does want to be with her, she makes him so happy _ , Thomas wonders.

He shakes his head as they move towards the cats. James points to a little orange tabby cat with an ear that’s cut off in the middle. It looks like something bit it off. Thomas walks a bit closer, pretending to look at some dog toys. James pets the cat through the bars of the cat’s cage and laughs when it rubs up against his fingers. 

“But why would you want a cat like that? Just buy a purebred cat, it’s easier and you don’t have to worry about diseases and crap,” Dolley says, standing back up from squatting next to the cage. James looks up from the place he’s standing and gives her a weird look. 

“But the broken cats, like him, are always the sweetest ones,” James explains. Dolley puts her weight on his hip and crosses her arm. 

“I don’t know,” she answers sassily. James rolls his eyes, a small smile on his lips and turns towards the bird cage. He starts humming a song as he sticks his fingers through the bars of the cage.  _ I Was Made For Loving You _ , it’s the song Thomas showed James. Even this weird little thing makes Thomas blush. 

“James, I’m bored, let’s go to the clothing store across the way,” Dolley whines. James looks behind him, towards the glass windows.

“Yeah, sure,” James nods as they walk across start towards the store’s exit. Thomas lets out a breath and rests his head against the shelves.  _ He looks so happy with her, I’d rather see him happy with her than miserable with me. Maybe he just doesn’t want to be the one to break up with me,  _ Thomas wonders.  _ God, why does my chest hurt so much? _

Thomas looks back up at James and Dolley laughing as they walk toward the store.  _ He looks so happy with her. _ Thomas shakes his head and starts to follow them across the way. The store smells overwhelming, the perfume collection being the culprit no doubt. It’s suffocating, but maybe that was just the thoughts swimming through Thomas’s head. The store is one of those trendy clothing stores with a sleek design and racks and stacks and walls of clothing every where. 

Thomas spots James laughing with Dolley at some dresses and Dolley pulls two down. Dolley says something, James shakes his head and laughs, Dolley smirks and nods, and James sighs and nods, with Dolley crazily laughing. They make their way around the store, Dolley picking out hats and shoes and everything in between. 

_ God, he looks so happy. Does he look this happy when we’re together? He just barely cracks a smile, like I’m not complaining that soft smile is one of my favorite things in the world, but I want to see more of his laugh. More of his big bright smiles, and happy sparkling eyes.  _

Dolley points across the store at a bunch of mannequins, she grabs James and pulls him over to a bunch of prom dresses and plucks a pink one off of a rack and starts pushing James over to the changing rooms. Thomas watches in confusion as Dolley throws James and two dresses into the changing room. 

After a few moments James comes back out of the changing room wearing the big prom dress. The dress fits against his top-half, but poofs out at the waist. The skirt is big and flowy with pink fabric everywhere. Little rhinestones dot the dress.  _ Why is he so beautiful?? _ Thomas quickly pulls out his phone and takes pictures as James looks at himself in the mirror and spins around.  _ This is some fucking good shit _ . James laughs and bows to Dolley, making her laugh too. Dolley stands up and starts hurrying him towards the dressing room, pointing at something else in there. She shuts the door and sits down again, bouncing her foot up and down.

After a few more moments James comes back out in a wine colored dress. It was mid-thigh length with a lace splicing that covered his neck and shoulders.  _ Okay, how can a guy be this pretty? _ Thomas asks himself as he takes more pictures. Dolley stands up and claps. James flips her off and snickers. He goes back into the changing room and comes back out in his normal clothes. 

James says something and points towards the front desk, Dolley nods and they start to walk over to the check out. Thomas waits a few moments, and follows them out after they pay for the clothes. Thomas follows as they leave the mall. Dolley hugs James, and James hugs Dolley back. 

That’s the last straw for Thomas, his heart feels like it shatters into a million tiny little pieces. He watches them bleary-eyed. He feels like he was suddenly pushed underwater, it’s that sort of breathless feeling, and his throat closes up. His head spins with thoughts and his fingers tingle, making him one big mess as he walks. He shakes his head and walks to his car, kicking the gravel under his shoes. 

Thomas gets into his car and lays his head on the steering wheel.  _ Damn it, I’m too late. Somehow I knew this would happen. I always manage to screw up my relationships _ .  _ Shit, what am I gonna do? _ Thomas thinks and thinks and thinks, people start to drive away. But something dawns on Thomas.  _ I have a plan _ , he decides, turning his car on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for the next chapter!!


	28. Forelsket

James locks his car as he starts up the steps to his apartment. He hums a little tune, the cupcakes and a bag from the clothing store hanging from his hands. He feels peaceful, and relaxed. Like the world was at peace, but he knew that feeling would come crashing down, it always does, 

James gets to the top landing of the stairs and turns to see Thomas standing at his apartment door. He had his eyes closed and his head leaned back against the door. He looks serene and oddly handsome, something about how he was standing looked nice. Thomas has a University or Paris sweatshirt and jeans on, a black hat and sunglasses dangling from his fingers. It was kind of weird to see Thomas in casual clothes, but it also really suited him, he looked good. The really casual look brought out his handsomeness. 

James looks away for a second, collecting himself, then looks back up at Thomas. He starts to make his way over to him. Before James can say anything Thomas opens one eye and looks at him. When he realizes it’s James he pushes off of the door and turns towards him. 

“Hi Thomas,” James looks away.  _ Just look at him _ , James yells to himself. He brings himself to look up at Thomas, something wasn’t right. Thomas’s eyes were rimmed-red and looked tired and sad. Something about the way he looked made James want to kiss him. He was tired of not having Thomas around, so any contact would be fine with him. 

“Hey James, can I come in?” Thomas asks quietly. The first thing James noticed was how Thomas called him ‘James’ not ‘Maddy’, something about that made James uneasy. Secondly, it was the way Thomas said it, so subdued. He looked scared, but also sad. James was so used to having the flamboyant Thomas that it was weird hearing Thomas talk like that. 

“Uhm, yeah,” James says, unlocking his apartment door. They both walk in, the apartment is cold and a few blankets are sprawled across the floor, with trash in a little pile next to the coffee table. “Haha, sorry, I didn’t get to clean,” James laughed awkwardly. The way Thomas was acting really freaked James out. When suddenly alarm bells go off in James’s head.  _ What if he’s going to break up with me, shit, what if it was because I was so obsessed with having Dolley back. Oh, God, if it is, I’m going to start bawling _ , James bites his thumb nail. 

“So what do you want to talk about?” James asks nervously. He knew they could both hear the nervousness on his voice. It was shaking, and if he didn’t have the things in his hands they’d be shaking too. 

“Uhm,” Thomas is standing up straight and he was staring at the ground. “If-if you want to break up with me that’s fine, because I want you to be happy. And if your happiness means you’re with someone else that’s okay, because I would rather you be happy than me,” Thomas stares at the ground intently, then tears start to form in the corners of his eyes. James is caught off-guard by Thomas’s tears.  

“What? What do you mean?” James asks, plain dumbfounded. Thomas looks up for a second. His face looks hopeless and tired, it made James want to reach out and hug him, but he was too confused to do anything.

“I’ve seen how happy you are with Dolley. Your smile is always so beautiful and you have the best laugh when you’re around her. And you rarely laugh around me, and I want you to laugh all the time, so if you want to, date Dolley,” Thomas chokes out. James watches Thomas in sheer confusion. Tears stream down his face, falling off his face and plopping onto the carpet. 

“You don’t need to spare my feelings for your happiness, so please, just break up with me if you love her. I really really still want to be with you, but I can’t be selfish with love,” Thomas sniffles again. James furrows his eyebrows together and shakes his head. 

“Why would you think I’m happier with Dolley?” James asks breathlessly. James was starting to tear up too, his mouth going dry. Thomas’s face contorted in sadness, but somehow he still looked beautiful to James.

“Have you seen your smile when you’re with Dolley? It’s so bright and your eyes look like they’re shining,” Thomas rubs at his eyes, but it’s useless because more tears track down his face. 

James’s body moves quicker than his mind and before he knows it, he’s kissing Thomas. James can taste the salty tears and can feel how warm Thomas is. James has Thomas by the sweatshirt collar and is pulling him down to him. James opens his eyes and looks at Thomas, his eyes are wide open, tears still in the corners. James pulls his mouth away a little bit, still enjoying how warm Thomas feels, and looks him in the eyes. 

“Thomas, I want to be with you. I love you, and I’m beyond happy with you,” James mumbles. Thomas laughs and lays his head on James’s shoulder. James pulls Thomas close and wraps his arms around him, all of James’s nerve ends seem like they’re working triple time. Thomas’s arms wrapped around James, he holds James carefully. Thomas smells nice, like cupcakes and perfume, oddly enough. And his sweatshirt feels nice, it’s soft and warm. In that moment James’s mind was filled with Thomas. And it was so amazing that he even couldn’t explain how he felt. It was indescribable. 

“Not to sound weird or anything, but can you say it again?” Thomas whispers to James. Even though he didn’t say what ‘it’ was they both knew what he meant. James looked up from Thomas’s chest and smiles. 

“I love you, Thomas,” James says softly. Thomas closes his eyes and smiles softly.  _ This is the Thomas I love, the smiling, loving one _ , James thinks, but then he realizes something,  _ there’s not a Thomas I don’t love the jealous one, the sad one, the selfless one, I love all of them.  _

“Music to my ears,” Thomas hums. James smiles and pulls away from the hug, suddenly extremely cold. James reaches out and takes Thomas’s hand, it’s soft and warm and comforting. 

“I bought cupcakes, want some?” James asks, leading Thomas towards the box from the store Dolley and James went to. Thomas looks down at the box with a slight frown, then looks up at James and cracks a smile.

“Sounds good,” Thomas nods, sitting next to James on the couch. James pulls the box onto his lap and picks the velvet cupcake up and holds it out to Thomas. He looks down at the cupcake and looks up at James.

“Here, I know you like red velvet, so I bought you this when Dolley and I went to Founding Mall,” James explains, eyeing the chocolate on the top of the cupcake. Thomas beams at James.

“Thanks,” Thomas says happily as he takes it and pulls the chocolate piece off. He bites it in half and hands it to James. “I saw you eyeing the chocolate, so have half,” Thomas offers. James smiles and takes the piece and pops it into his mouth. 

“Thanks, also I haven’t continued on the X Files, do you want to watch it?” James asks as he pulls his cupcake out and takes the remote. Thomas moves his arm behind James’s neck and pulls him closer.

“Yeah,” Thomas looks around, “But where’s Dolley?” James looks up at Thomas with a confused look and smiles a bit. 

“Her flight was today, she’s going back to California,” James answers, as he cuddles into Thomas. A wide grin covers Thomas’s face and he tries to hide it, but doesn’t do a very good job. James scoffs and shakes his head, turning the X Files on. Thomas lays back and hugs James to his chest, James finds himself messing with Thomas’s hand. There’s a small silver band on his index finger, James draws circles on Thomas’s hand. 

“What’s this ring?” James asks, not looking up from Thomas’s hand.

“Promise ring,” Thomas smirks. James scoffs and looks back at him, with a big, surprised smile on his face. 

“Really?”

“No,” Thomas laughs. They both snicker. “But really, the last time I visited my dad in France he gave me this, I think it looks nice. What do you think?” Thomas asks. James looks up at Thomas, his eyes seem happier and warmer than just a few moments ago, but his eyes are still red from crying. 

“I think it looks nice,” James smiles softly. They go back to watching the movie, but James’s mind keeps going back to what Thomas said before. About how James loves Dolley more than him. 

“Thomas, why would you think I love Dolley more than you?” James asks, leaning his head back onto Thomas’s chest, staring up into his eyes.  _ He has the most beautiful eyes _ . Thomas doesn’t respond for a moment, he just looked into James’s eyes. 

“Whenever you two were together you were always laughing, and you don’t laugh as much with me,” Thomas looks off, avoiding making eye contact. “And the way you were laughing with Dolley was so beautiful, I want to see it all the time,” Thomas continues. James sits up and turns towards Thomas, sitting on his knees. Thomas pushes himself up enough for them to both be eye-level. 

“Thomas, when I’m with you I feel like I can really relax. I don’t constantly laugh and smile because I don’t have to try and leave a good impression with you, I know you’ll love me for who I normally am. The really quiet person, who -honestly- can have troubles expressing my emotions, but when I’m with you I feel like I can just be me and that’ll be okay,” James explains, his eyes wide like an owl, staring into Thomas’s eyes. Thomas didn’t respond for a long time, he just watched James. 

“Then I’m fine with you being calm, plus I love that soft smile you always give me,” Thomas smirks. James scoffs quietly and looks off. “Ah! There it is!” Thomas cheers. James laughs, covering his mouth. 

“What did you buy at the mall anyways?” Thomas asks, peeking over James’s shoulder at the grey bag. 

“Oh! I actually bought you something!” James smiles, rummaging through the bag. While he was hanging out with Dolley he saw it and thought of Thomas. James freezes when he sees a dress. 

“What are you looking at?” Thomas says leaning against James’s back. He looks down at the bag and gasps. “Is that a dress?” Thomas asks. James looks back at him and starts blubbering. 

“I don’t know how it in there, it must be Dolley’s!” James stammers. Thomas laughs and reaches over James and pulls the dress out. He holds it up and looks it up and down. 

“Put it on! I want to see you in it!” Thomas looks over at James and smiles happily. James’s face goes beet red.

“What? No!” James laughs, pushing the dress away. Thomas puts the dress up against James, pinning the shoulders of the dress up to James’s. 

“Will you put it on later? Please?” Thomas begs. James shakes his head. Thomas makes puppy dog eyes and James laughs, tipping his head back. 

“Okay fine, later, but not right now,” James sighs, a smile on his lips. 

“Yes! Victory for Thomas!!” Thomas cheers, throwing his arms up in the arm. James giggles and shakes his head. He starts fishing around in his bag and pulls out the grey box with black lettering across the lid. 

“Here, it’s your super early birthday gift,” James hands Thomas the box and he looks down at it, then back up at James with a smile. 

“My birthday is April 13, you know this right?” Thomas laughs, as he lowers the box into his lap. James nods.

“Duh, that’s why is super early,” James smiles. Thomas smiles and shakes his head, starting to open the box. Thomas flicks his eyes up at James, then opens the box to reveal the watch. It’s a small silver wrist watch with a black clock face and silver arms. Thomas’s eyes look like they glitter as he pushes up his sleeve and puts the watch on. He holds his hand out then smiles at James. 

“Thank you! It’s great,” Thomas smiles as he wraps his arms around James’s neck, James laughs and wraps his arms around Thomas’s waist. “Ah! It looks so nice!” Thomas beams again. James smiles into Thomas’s sweatshirt. Thomas brings his lips to James’s, and pulls away all too quickly, looking back at his watch. James smiles and turns up the TV’s volume. 

“You bought this when you were out with Dolley?” Thomas asks skeptically. James looks over at him and squints. 

“Yeah? Why?” James asks. Thomas hesitates for a few seconds, looking down at his watch, then back up at James. 

“No reason,” Thomas says quickly. Before James could ask anymore questions Thomas continues. “Will you put the dress on now? I really want to see you in it!” Thomas beams. James looks down awkwardly at the dress and laughs nervously. 

“I don’t think you’ll want to see it,” James looks off and pulls at the collar of his shirt. Thomas laughs and shakes his head. 

“Trust me, I want to see it,” Thomas takes James’s hand and watches his thumb run down the back of James’s hand. 

“I guess, but you can’t make fun of me,” James sighs, placing the dress over his arm and standing up. Thomas beams up at James.

“Wouldn’t dream of it Babe,” Thomas winks. James sighs and rolls his eyes as he makes him way to his bedroom. 

“And don’t come in while I’m changing,” James looks behind him and raises his eyebrows at Thomas.

“Aw, you’re spoiling all my fun,” Thomas pouts. James laughs and rolls his eyes again.  “Can I at least take it off you?” Thomas asks, straightening out his back and giving James a suggestive look. James scoffs softly and shakes his head, turning back to the door with a slight smile. 

Just before James could go into his bedroom Thomas called out, “I didn’t hear any no’s!” James laughs and goes into his bedroom to change. 

\-----

James looks down at the dress and sighs, as he runs his fingers through his short hair.  _ Oh God this is going to be so embarrassing, _ James thinks as he pulls open the door and steps out into the living room. Thomas looks up from the TV and his jaw drops. James scrunches up his nose and sticks his tongue out at him. Thomas stands up, now with a goofy smile plastered on his face. He scoops James up in a big hug and kisses him, James pulls his face away. 

“Agh, you’re so embarrassing Thomas,” James puffs as he hides his face in Thomas’s sweatshirt. Thomas laughs and rests his chin on the top of James’s head. 

“But you look so cute, I couldn’t help it,” Thomas giggles. James groans and wraps his arms around Thomas’s chest. “I’m serious, you look really good!” Thomas insists, quieter this time. James snuggles his face deeper into Thomas’s sweatshirt and lets out a squeak.

Thomas pulls James’s chin up to him and kisses James. He seemed careful and soft, like he was afraid James would break. Thomas’s warm and perfect. It seemed to James that Thomas in general was perfect. Thomas pulls his mouth away from James and moves his hand to James’s waist. James’s heartbeat picks up, and he smiles, a wide happy smile. Unlike when’s he’s trying to make good impression, this smile is real and happy and glimmering. 

“You’re absolutely intoxicating, Thomas,” James smiles. Thomas watches James with a soft smile and keen eyes. 

“Have you ever heard of forelsket before?” Thomas asks. James shakes his head ‘no’. “It’s a Norwegian word, it means “the euphoria you experience when you fall in love” James watches Thomas’s eyes, and how they trail down James’s face. 

“And you know what? Whenever I’m around you I feel forelsket. I feel it whenever I see you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're going to try to get an April Fool's chapter up!! We're aiming for actually April 1st, but we'll see how it all pans out! Anyway, once again, thanks for reading!  
> -Hest


	29. April Fool's

James rolls over and doesn’t see Thomas anywhere. He pushes himself and doesn’t see Thomas changing. He sighs and gets up, walking into the living room. Thomas is leaning against the couch and facing James’s door. 

“Good morning my beautiful boyfriend!” Thomas cheers, wrapping his arms around James. James looks up from his shirt and looks at Thomas skeptically.

“What did you do?” James asks. Thomas makes a face that says “How could you?!”, but in the most dramatic way possible. 

“Can I not tell my boyfriend good morning?” Thomas gasps dramatically. James laughs and pulls away from the hug. 

“You can, but you’re just acting weird,” James smiles as he walks to the cupboards. James can hear a slight giggle from Thomas as he puts his hand on the handle to the cupboard. James turns back to him, “What?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing to worry about,” Thomas urges. James shakes his head again and opens the cupboard to find, mac n’ cheese. Like only mac n’ cheese, nothing else. All of it was in tupperware containers and a few were in bowls. James stares at the cupboard for a few moments before he turns towards the fridge and opens that. More mac n’ cheese. James doesn’t look back at Thomas. 

“Thomas,” James says in an even voice, “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO WITH ALL OF MY FOOD?” James yells. Now he looks back and finds Thomas laughing so hard he has to hold onto his sides. James frowns and glares at Thomas. 

“APRIL FOOL’S!” Thomas laughs, throwing his hands in the air. James looks into the corner of the room like he’s on the office and lets out a big sigh. 

“What’d you do with all of my food? I just restocked on Gushers!” James whines, looking back, longingly at his cupboard. Thomas walks towards James and puts an arm around his neck. 

“Don’t worry they’re at my house,” Thomas says as he points towards the door, “Plus if you think this was a bad prank just wait ‘till we get to work, it’ll be ten times worse.” James sighs, dropping his shoulders down. 

“This is a cursed day.”

\---------

Thomas and James step out of the elevator, hand-in-hand, and both get an air horns honked in their ears. Lafayette and Hercules start laughing as Thomas and James hold their ears from the surprise. 

“April Fool’s!” Lafayette cheers in that thick accent. Thomas starts laughing and James glares at the two of them. 

“I think I just went partially deaf,” James grumbles as he continues to his desk. Thomas laughs and put a hand on James’s shoulder.

“James apparently doesn’t like April Fool’s day,” He explains. James sticks his tongue out at him and crosses his arms. “Aw, like a kitten,” Thomas jokes. James scrunches up his nose and frowns. Thomas laughs again and pulls him into his office. 

“I just want you to know, since you’re my assistant and all, I am starting a new case,” Thomas explains, walking to his desk. James’s eyes pull over to the desk’s name holder. It reads “ _ Thomas JefferSIN,  _ _ Chief Operating Officer _ ”. James stifles a laugh and looks back up at Thomas. 

“What?” Thomas asks, shooting James a confused look. James shakes his head and tells him it’s nothing. “Okay? Anyways, I’ll probably ask for your opinion a lot, so be ready for that.”

“Will do,  _ Mr. Jefferson _ ,” James says as he heads towards the door. Thomas laughs. 

“Ooh sexy,” Thomas jokes. James laughs and looks back at Thomas.

“Thomas, this isn’t 50 Shades of Grey, calm down,” James jokes back. Thomas laughs and watches James with an amused look. 

“Why do you know what that is? Aren’t you supposed to be pure?” Thomas asks, with a joyous tone. James looks back and winks, as he leave Thomas’s office. Thomas laughs. James sits down at his desk and after a few minutes Thomas throws open his door, holding out his name tag holder. 

“WHO THE  _ FUCK _ CHANGED MY NAME CARD TO SAY JEFFER _ SIN _ ?!” Thomas yells down the hallway. People that could hear him start to snicker. Angelica walks past them from the elevator with an evil laugh. Thomas glares at Angelica as she walks to her office and stops, staring in. “It was her,” Thomas whispers quietly. 

“WHO SARAN-WRAPPED MY ENTIRE OFFICE?!” Angelica yells, walking into the office. Thomas and James exchange looks and start running down to Angelica’s office, which already had a group of people surrounding the door, They push past and see that  _ everything _ is covered in careful saran-wrap besides the walls and the roof. Thomas and James laugh, while everyone gossips about who’s crazy enough to prank Angelica Schuyler. Phillip comes trotting in with a big thing of saran-wrap and starts wrapping it around Angelica’s legs. She looks down, dumbfounded by her nephew and starts to laugh. 

“Auntie Angie, happy April Fool’s day!” Philip sing-songs. Angie bends down awkwardly, because of the saran-wrap around her legs. 

“Did your moms put you up to this?” Angelica asks with a tight smile. Philip shakes his head and smiles brightly. 

“No I came up with the idea and they said we could!” Philip cheers. Angelica looks at Philip with a confused smile, then looks at the people in the doorway still with that smile. 

\---------

“James, come with us,” Hercules says, it was supposed to be a whisper, but with his loud voice it came out as a normal talking voice. 

“What? Why?” James asks as he looks between Lafayette and Hercules.

“You’ll see,” Lafayette laughs as he pulls James up from his seat and motions him to follow them.  _ I’m going to regret this aren’t I? _ , James asks himself. He sighs and follows them. Hercules is holding a bottle of axe and some duct tape. They get to John’s office, Lafayette and Hercules laugh when they see his door cracked open. They hunch down behind John’s door, with James standing away from them and sighing. 

Lafayette whispers something to Hercules and he nods. He hands the axe bottle to Lafayette and pulls a strip of duct tape off, handing that to Lafayette too. Hercules counts down and Lafayette puts the tap across the axe, making the button held down so it continued to spray. Lafayette throws it in and they join James where he’s standing, both laughing maniacally. 

A few seconds pass and John and Alex come rushing out, both coughing. Lafayette, James, and Hercules exchange confused looks. They start laughing and James furrows his eyebrows in confusion at John. 

“Jesus fuck who did that?” Alex hisses. John looks over at the three of them and starts chasing Lafayette and Hercules. Lafayette falls, making Hercules fall over him, and John jumps on top of them.

“What are you guys? Twelve? Who still axe bombs?” John laughs as gets off and helps them up. 

“Why was Alex in  _ your  _ office?” Lafayette jokes. John flickers his eyes back at Alex, who smiles weakly. 

“He was giving me some papers,” John answers with an annoyed look. John starts to lecture them about axe bombing people, and how he doesn’t have a window, and other things. James walks over to Alex and stands next to him. 

“Were you really giving him papers?” James asks, not pulling his eyes away from John. Alex looks over at James, then back at John. 

“Yeah, what do you think I’d be in there for?” Alex asks. James looks over at him and raises an eyebrow. Alex sighs and looks off a bit. “Trust me, he won’t let me near him unless it’s for paperwork,” Alex mumbles. James nods and looks back to John. 

“Well I have to go and fix Angelica’s office,” Alex puffs, before Alex got too far James says something. 

“I wouldn’t give up if I were you,” James says quietly. Alex stops and smiles smalley at him, then continues towards Angelica’s office. 

“And were you an accomplice James?” John points back at James. James shakes his head and walks up to them.

“No, these two just told me to follow,” James explains. John glares back at the two and starts lecturing them on dragging James into things.

\----------

“James are you back from shopping?” Thomas calls from the bedroom as James struggles to carry in the bags. He had to restock on all of his food because Thomas wanted to stay in James apartment. Which was a stupid excuse, but James just said okay (April Fool’s tired him out).

“Yeah,” James calls back as he puts the bags onto the counter. He starts to put the food away when Thomas says something. 

“Come here, I need you,” Thomas calls again. James sighs and looks back at the door to his bedroom. 

“I’m kind of busy here,” James calls. James can hear a loud sigh from his bedroom.

“Please?” Thomas asks, James sighs and puts the box of gushers next to the ramen.  _ I might as well, he won’t let me get any work done until I do _ , James thinks as he groans. 

“Fine, I’m coming,” James trudges over to his bedroom and opens the door. James stares into the room, his eyes moving over to the bed. 

Thomas is laying across the bed in that “draw me like your french girl” pose. A rose in his mouth and suggestive look across his face. He’s wearing a cream colored virgin-killer sweater and black cat ears are tangled in his hair. Thomas pulls the rose out of his mouth and tosses it at James. 

“Nya’ll,” Thomas purrs. James stares tiredly at Thomas turns back around, closing the door behind him. 

“Jesus Christ,” James breathes as he walks out of the apartment, down the stairs, and into his car. James looks back and sees Thomas standing in the window with a confused look. James starts his car and pulls out of the parking lot.

\---------

James walks back into the apartment and looks over to the couch. Thomas looks up from the TV, he has a bowl of mac n’ cheese in his hands and was still wearing his outfit. 

“Please tell me you’re wearing underwear,” James sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Thomas gives him an annoyed glare and nods.

“Of course, what do you mistake me for? A common whore?” Thomas answers, shoveling more food into his mouth. James sighs again and joins Thomas on the couch. 

“With you, I never know,” James shrugs. Thomas looks over and sticks his tongue out. 

“I’m not gonna lie, this is very comfortable,” Thomas says. James looks over and shakes his head and laughs. 


	30. The Reason James Madison Can't Look The New Intern In The Eyes

“Jaaaames,” Thomas sings. James lazily opens his eyes and sees Thomas holding his hand up to his mouth and kisses it. James smiles and reaches forwards and strokes his cheek. Thomas smiles back. 

“Can we just stay here and not go to work?” Thomas asks. James scoffs and starts to get up. 

“We can’t do that Thomas,” James laughs. Thomas pulls James back down and hugs him to his chest. James squirms around. “Thomas, come on,” James sighs, looking up at Thomas. Thomas shakes his head and kisses James’s forehead. 

“Please?” Thomas asks. James gives Thomas an annoyed look. He gets free of Thomas’s grasp and kisses him back. 

“Sorry, but I get sick so much I can’t miss a day,” James says as he stands up from the bed and pulls on white button up shirt. Thomas pouts and his shoulders droop. James reaches back across the bed and kisses him again. “Come on, let’s get ready. I’ll reheat some mac n’ cheese for breakfast,” James says as he pulls on some slacks and a grey sweater vest. Thomas groans and lays back on the bed. 

“Fine,” Thomas sighs, pushing up off of the bed. He pulls on some of the clothes he’s been leaving at James’s apartment and wraps an arm around James’s neck. “You’re gorgeous, you know that?” Thomas asks, looking into James’s eyes. James smiles softly and holds onto Thomas’s arms. 

“And you’re beyond beautiful,” James hums. Thomas smiles and leans down, kissing James again. Thomas is warm and soft and tasted like vanilla. 

“Okay, let’s go and get some mac n’ cheese,” James says, holding onto Thomas’s waist. Thomas lets go and they make their way to the kitchen. 

“I still can’t believe you bought so much mac n’ cheese,” James sighs as he pulls out one of the tupperware containers and scoops some mac n’ cheese into two bowls. 

“Hey, I’m extra, what can I say?” Thomas laughs and shrugs. James looks back at Thomas and shakes his head, putting the bowls into the microwave and starts it up. James looks up at the microwave and starts humming. Thomas comes up behind James and wraps his arms around his neck. James takes Thomas’s hands and laughs. 

“What are you doing? You’re acting touchy,” James smiles up at Thomas. Thomas kisses James’s cheek, making James scrunch up his shoulders and smile. 

“I don’t know, I just like being around you,” Thomas lays his head onto of James’s. James smiles softly and watches the microwave happily. The microwave beeps and James reaches up and pulls out the bowls, handing one to James. 

“Wanna watch the X Files before work?” James asks, as he makes his way over to the couch. 

“Yeah,” Thomas answers, plopping down next to James and putting an arm around his waist. James nods and turns the show on. Thomas starts to move around anxiously. 

“Hey James,” Thomas asks seriously. James looks up and covers his mouth as he nods. “Do you mind if I start bringing Benny over? I feel really bad for leaving him there all the time,” Thomas explains sheepishly. James looks over to Thomas and thinks.

“Sure,” James agrees. Thomas beams at James and nods. 

“Thanks! Do you want to come over to my house and bring him over after work?” Thomas asks.

“Yeah, of course we can,” James nods. “Plus, I like going over to Monticello,” James shrugs. Thomas smiles and kisses James’s cheek. 

\-----------

Thomas and James leave the elevator and Thomas pulls James into his office. They walk in and Thomas closes the door behind them. James laughs and shakes his head. 

“What are you doing?” James giggles. Thomas grabs a stack of papers and hands them to James. 

“I need you to make some copies of these and I’m going to print out some papers so grab those while you’re down there too,” Thomas explains to James, as he goes back to his computer. James nods and leaves the office. He throws his computer bag onto his desk and starts down the hallway towards the copier room. James opens the door and sees Alex standing near the printer. Alex looks up, but looks back down when he sees James. 

James pretends like he doesn’t notice the tension in the air and starts the copier machine. He starts tapping his foot anxiously until the printer next to Alex started up.  _ Of course it’s the one next to him, of course it is _ , James thinks as he walks towards the printer, checking to see if it were the papers Thomas was printing, they were. Alex took a deep breath and looks over to James.

“James, can I ask you something?” Alex asks sheepishly. James looks over to him, then looks back towards the door longily. Alex rubs his arm and looks off.

“Yeah, what is it?” James answers awkwardly. Ale looks back towards the printer and clears his throat.

“What did you mean when you told me not to give up? I mean, I get that it’s about, well, yeah, but why shouldn’t I give up,” Alex laughs dryly, “I mean it’s lookin’ pretty hopeless here.” James thought through his answer. Alex did look pretty hopeless, but John would too when it came to him. 

“John is a very, uhm, emotional person,” James says slowly. “And I think once an emotional person falls in love it’s extremely hard for them to fall  _ out _ of love,” James watches the papers come out of the printer. Alex looks up at James with wide eyes and a sudden look of regret flows over his face. 

“Love?” Alex asks, breathlessly. James looks up at Alex and barely raises his eyebrows. Alex slumps his shoulders, and sighs lowly. “Dammit,” Alex breathes. James looks down at the printer and his mind moves fast. 

“Alex, why did you do it?” James asks quietly, but quickly. Alex looks up with a confused look, then grimaces and looks away sheepishly. 

“I’m sorry, I know I’m an asshole. But I really did love Thomas, and I don’t know, I guess I felt like I got an advantage since I had loved him longer. I didn’t really realize that you actually liked him back, I just thought you hated him,” Alex looks back up at James with remorseful eyes. “And I sure as Hell didn’t know John liked me, I feel like an asshole too. I mean he was a one night stand, that must’ve hurt like  _ hell _ . And now I feel like shit about all of this,” Alex sighs. James didn’t respond he just thought it over. Alex’s papers finished printing and said bye to James, so James found himself alone. James wasn’t entirely sure how to even take that. 

The papers finish printing and the other stack finishes copying so James starts to make his way back to Thomas’s office. He opens the door and sees Thomas pushing back his hair. James walks in silently. Thomas looks up and gleams up at James. 

“Hey Babe,” Thomas slinks out of his chair and stands in front of James. 

“Here’s the papers,” James says, handing Thomas the papers. Thomas takes them and pulls James over towards the desk. Thomas pulls James close and wraps his arms around James’s waist. 

“Are you free right now?” Thomas hums happily to James. James held Thomas’s arms and looks awkwardly towards the door.

“Yes, why?” James answers. This made Thomas excited and looks back at the door. Thomas leans down and kisses James. He’s warm and kisses him quickly. James pulls his mouth away and stares up at Thomas.

“Thomas, somebody’s going to walk in,” James whispers, looking towards the door. Thomas bites his bottom lip and looks excitedly into James’s eyes.

“Come on, nobody’s going to walk in,” Thomas purrs. James looks towards the door again. 

“Thomas,” James groans. Thomas starts kissing along his neck and jaw. James scrunches his nose and looks back towards the door. “Thomas,” James says quieter this time. Thomas looks up to James, his eyes are filled with excitement.

“Come on, James,” Thomas smiles playfully. James looks anxiously at the door then sighs. He nods and Thomas grins mischievously. He quickly pushes James up against the wall, pushing his leg between James’s. Thomas connects their lips and pushes his tongue into James’s mouth. 

Thomas pulls James up, so he was closer to Thomas. James wraps his legs around his waist and pulls his arms around Thomas’s neck. Thomas pulls his mouth away, both breathing heavily. James looks over Thomas’s face and quickly connects their lips again. Thomas smiles against James’s lips and starts grinding against him. Thomas pulls his mouth away from James’s and starts sucking down his neck. James curls his back in pleasure, and one of the hands around Thomas’s neck tangled itself into Thomas’s hair. 

“Ah, Thomas,” James moans out. Hearing this made Thomas grin even wider. One of Thomas’s hands trail under James’s shirt and up his back. Suddenly the door opens and a short girl with a brown curly hair pulled into a ponytail steps in. Thomas and James turn towards the door with big wide eyes and red faces, well at least James was blushing. 

“Hello, I, uh,” the girls stops and her face goes red too. James and Thomas look at each other, and James pushes Thomas off of him and sprints over to her. 

“Please don’t say anything, I’m so sorry,” James stammers. Thomas saunters up to James and puts an arm around him.

“What do you need?” Thomas asks with an annoyed tone. The girls looks sheepishly at them and smiles. 

“Uhm, I’m a new intern, Peggy, Angelica told me I should come introduce myself to everyone. So hello,” she doesn’t look at them but shakes their hands. 

“Nice meeting you, I’m James,” James says weakly. She nods.

“Mr. Jefferson,” Thomas says coldly. Peggy nods and leaves the room quickly. Once she’s gone and the door is shut James turns to Thomas with an annoyed frown.

“I told you this would happen,” James frowns. Thomas shrugs and smiles again. 

“We could continue,” Thomas smirks. James glares at him.

“Don’t even think about it.”

\---------

“Ready to get Benny?” Thomas smiles brightly. James gets into the passenger side door and nods. 

“I haven’t been to Monticello in forever,” James smiles as Thomas starts the car. He nods and pulls out of the parking lot, starting down towards his house. “The last time I was there, I stumbled in drunk, and you ended up kissing me,” James laughs lightly. Thomas grins and turns a corner. 

“Yep, and the day after we went on an un-official date,” Thomas looks over at James. They both laugh.

“I still can’t believe you forced me to feed you,” James shakes his head and looks out the window as Thomas turns another corner. 

“I still can’t believe you actually did,” Thomas points out as they turn down Monticello’s street. James scoffs and looks out the window. They pull up to Thomas’s house and pull into the driveway. They both get out of the car and stroll up to the house. Thomas unlocks it and steps in. 

“Benny! Come ‘ere boy!” Thomas calls. The saint bernard comes barreling towards them and knocks Thomas over. Thomas laughs as Benny licks him. He eventually pushes Benny off of him and stands back up. 

“I’m going to get some other things, so you can follow me if you want,” Thomas shrugs his bag onto the floor and starts down towards living room. James hurriedly pulls off his shoes and leaves his bags next to Thomas’s. 

They make their way through the living room, down a hallway, and up a big, grand staircase. They make their way down another hallway and end up in Thomas’s room. James walks over to Thomas’s bed and sits down. 

“I can’t believe your bed sheets are magenta,” James looks down at the sheets on Thomas’s bed. Thomas grabs a duffel bag and starts throwing some clothes in. 

“Hey, they look good,” Thomas shrugs, “Plus they really bring out the color of my dick.”  James laughs and pushes back his hair.

“Oh my fucking God,” James scoffs. Thomas laughs and puts a few more items into his bag and starts grabbing some other things. 

“Also, I can’t believe that poor girl walked in on us making out. She looked horrified,” James sighs as he shoves his fists into his eyes. 

“You know, if you want to continue with what we were doing early we can,” Thomas smirks. Walking over at James and smiling down at him. James laughs and shakes his head.

“You’re really something, you know that?” James laughs. Thomas smirks.

“I didn’t hear a no,” Thomas hums as he pushes James back against the bed and suddenly appearing above James. James laughs and kisses Thomas. He pulls away as Thomas pins him to the bed. He reaches back down and continues kissing James. Thomas slips a hand under James’s shirt and starts slipping it off of him. Thomas tosses the shirt onto the ground and beams at James. 

“Are we actually doing this?” James laughs. 

“If you want to,” Thomas offers. James thinks for a second and sighs. 

“Yeah,” James says before he helps Thomas pull his shirt off and throws it onto the floor next to James’s. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! The next few chapters are kind -surprising- I suppose. Also thank everybody so so so much!! Like somehow Personal Business has over 200 kudos?? Like how??   
> -Hest


	31. The World Seems To Burn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey it's your local vampire (at least sleep pattern-wise), Hest, sorry about the slow updates. Navi and I were debating whether or not to add another chapter between the last and this one, but we just decided to stick with just this! So enjoy!

Thomas sat in his car, trying to think of what he had forgotten. He put the wine away, folded the blankets, Benny was at James’s, he turned in his paper work, he started the laundry and dishwasher. He felt like the answer was just in reach but he couldn’t think of anything. Finally the thought came to him,  _ The fireplace. _ He fumbles with his keys, finally sticking them in the ignition, he starts the car. He pulls out and speeds till he gets stuck in the lunch traffic. 

\---------------------

After turning down some back roads and taking some alley ways he finally gets on the road to his home. He could see clouds of dark smoke rising from the big building. His heart sank into his stomach and he felt like he was going to throw up. He could see the red and white lights going off in the street. The numbness in his fingers slowly started to creep over his whole body, to where all he could feel was his eyes stinging and his heart beating a mile a minute. Thomas hopped out his car in the middle of his street, not caring enough to pull the key out of the ignition. 

He sat and stared up at the red flames, almost resembling flowers, engulfing his house. He stood and watched as the firefighters tried to dose the fire with a water hose. A few neighbors were out in their yards looking at the fire, most of them just got home no doubt. But now Thomas wouldn’t be able to do that. He couldn’t respond to the fire, it was taking away his memories, the photos he treasured so much were still hanging on the walls, the place he had lived. He felt a lump in his throat start to form and one of the police called to the scene runs up to him.

“Hello sir, is this your house?,” the woman was short and had a dark chin length bob. Thomas looks down at her, his mouth still hanging open. 

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry sir, we’re trying to do everything we can. Is there someone you can stay with tonight?” the lady looks back at the house. Thomas nods, looking back up to the flames. “Do you think you could call them?” the lady asks with a trained tone. Thomas nods again and pulls out his phone as the woman gets called away. He dials James’s number and the phone rings a few times before James picks up.

“Hi Thomas,” James sings through the phone. Thomas would usually smile, but now his brain was short-circuited and he couldn’t do anything more than stare up at the building. 

“There’s a fire at Monticello,” Thomas starts to tear up, but his voice didn’t waver, it kept that airy, confused tone. “It’s gone,” Thomas murmurs as he hangs up. His arm slumps down, next to him. He felt like he couldn’t breath, like when you fall on your back as a kid and knock the window out of you, but it was this constant feeling he couldn’t get rid of. 

He suddenly felt like nothing else was there beside the house and him, everything else falling black around him. Monticello was so safe to him, so comfortable, he had been through so many things in that house.  _ How am I going to live without it _ , Thomas asks himself. He snaps out of his trance when he hears a car zoom into the street, he didn’t look back, he couldn’t look away from Monticello. Everything appeared around him again, the bright red fire truck, the flashing lights, the gawking neighbors. 

“Thomas!” someone calls out behind him. Thomas turns and sees James sprinting towards him. Something about seeing James running towards him with that scared look made the situation occur to him. He could feel himself start to cry and he bites his bottom lip in some odd attempt to stop the tears. James reaches him and wraps his arms around Thomas’s neck, pulling him in for a kiss. James’s lips were so soft and tasted like cherry, but he could feel a hot tear fall onto his cheek. James pulled his mouth away and placed their foreheads on one another. Thomas realized he wasn’t the one crying, it was James. 

“Thank God, you’re okay. You’re okay, oh God, you’re okay,” James mumbles with a shaky voice. He slips down from Thomas’s neck and starts looking Thomas over, pulling at his arms and raising his shirt to look at his stomach. “Are you okay? Did you get burnt? Please tell me you’re okay,” James sniffles with that scared look on his face. Thomas watches James until he looks up at him. 

“I’m fine,” Thomas whispers. James’s face contorts in something like melancholic happiness. James reaches up and kisses Thomas again. 

“Thank goodness, here, let’s sit on the curb,” James directs. He leads Thomas to the concrete bump on the side of the road and takes his hands. Thomas was still dazed, but was also crying, like his body knew how to respond even though his mind couldn't. James wraps his arms around Thomas and pulls him close. 

“Thank God you’re okay,” James mumbles into the crook of Thomas’s neck, “You’re okay.”

\--------------------

James opens the door to his apartment, pulling Thomas in. Thomas’s hand was starting to hurt from how hard James was holding onto it, but he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t complaining, he wanted to hold something, especially James’s hand, because if he wasn’t holding something his hands would be shaking like there was an earthquake and only his hands were affected. Benny wags his tail and licks Thomas’s free hand, he smiles and pats Benny on his head. Hanni barely spares them a glance then stretches from a top the cat jungle. James holds Thomas’s upper arm with his other hand and looks up worriedly, with scared eyes. 

“Thomas,” James trails off, staring at Thomas with those big, big eyes. Thomas tries to smile, but only barely can. 

“James,” Thomas responds softly. James pulls him over to the couch. James was so close to him, pretty much leaning against Thomas. He wasn’t complaining about how close James was, but it was odd for him to do that. Maybe it was because he was worried about how blank Thomas was. Thomas would be worried if James was blank after  _ his _ apartment burnt down. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” James asks in a quiet tone. He was rubbing his thumb in circles around Thomas’s palm, it was oddly calming. Thomas was thankful to have James here, if he didn’t he wouldn’t have any place to stay, Benny wouldn’t be safe, and he wouldn’t have anybody to be with. 

“Sure,” Thomas whispers. He closes his eyes and lays his head onto James’s shoulder. James lays his head on Thomas’s. 

“Okay, start whenever you want to,” James says softly. They sit in silence for a few moments, both not entirely sure what to say. 

“James, thank you,” Thomas mumbles. He can imagine the weird expression James has on his face. His nose was probably scrunched up and his eyebrows pulled together. 

“What for?” James whispers. This makes Thomas chuckle.  

“For being here for me,” Thomas explains softly. James’s grip tightens on his arm and Thomas smiles to himself. James was so sweet, he might act all quiet and tough or whatever, but once you got to know him you realized how thoughtful and kind he was. 

“I think it’s kind of a given, being here for you, and all,” James says, his voice a low hum. Everything about him was so soft and soothing even though he was such a serious guy. 

“Not all people think that way,” Thomas says, lifting his head to look at James. “But you think that way, always so thoughtful and caring, which is one of the reasons I love you so much,” Thomas cooes. James smiles softly and kisses Thomas on the cheek. James pulls his head away only a bit, his eyes plastered to Thomas’s face, his hand rubbing his thumb against Thomas’s cheek. 

“I love you Thomas,” James murmurs. Thomas smiles softly. 

\-----------

Thomas opens his eyes groggily to sniffling and hiccups. He looks out the window in front of him, the sky was pitch black with little white dots laid out against the sky. Thomas didn’t move, trying to listen for the crying again. Sniffling and hiccuping go off again behind him.  _ James _ , Thomas realizes. He turns over and sees James’s shoulders were shaking and hunched up around his neck. 

“James?” Thomas whispers, like he was going to wake someone up. James’s shoulders freeze as he turns his head just enough to look at Thomas. “James,” Thomas says softer. James turns over to face Thomas, wet tears track down the side of his face. Thomas reaches forward and wipes them away. 

“Are you okay?” Thomas mumbles, taking James’s hand. James looks down at their hands and looks like he’s going to cry again. “Tell me,” Thomas says as he kisses the back of James’s hand. He looks off, which brought out the red circles under his eyes. 

“I was so scared when you called me about Monticello, I didn’t know if you were okay,” James watches their hands carefully. “And as I was driving over my mind was filling up with the worse scenarios of what could’ve happened,” James looks up at Thomas, his eyes look starry. 

“I was so relieved when I saw you standing there,” James drops his eyes back to their hands. He’s blushing and his eyes are still tear-filled. “Those twenty-minutes when I didn’t know what had happened were the most stressful moments of my life,” James frowns. 

“I-,” James hesitates, looking Thomas in the eyes. “I don’t think I could live without you, Thomas,” James mutters. Thomas smiles, he wasn’t sure how to respond so he reached forward and kisses James, trying to think of some response that could match James’s statement. When they were running out of air Thomas pulls away and says the first thing he could think of.

“I wouldn’t let you even be in that situation,” Thomas answers quietly. James squints a bit and frowns. 

“But what if you couldn’t control it,  _ like _ if there was a fire?” James mutters, looking away with another worried look. Thomas shakes his head. 

“Nope, I still wouldn’t, know why?” Thomas asks. James watches Thomas’s mouth talk, his eyes flicker up at Thomas’s eyes. 

“Why?”

“Because I’d remember you. I’d remember that soft smile, and your laugh whenever I make a dumb joke, and I’d remember the way your lips feel against mine, and I’d find enough strength to stay,” Thomas murmurs, staring into James’s eyes. “Because you’re my anchor James,” Thomas smiles, watching James as he starts crying again.

“Don’t cry, I was trying to be sweet,” Thomas smiles, wiping away the tears that fall from James’s eyes. James takes the hand wiping at his eyes and intertwines their fingers. 

“I love you,” James whispers. Thomas smiles and watches their hands.

“Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to make a public announcement that all of this angst/angsty fluff (??) stemmed from a joke.


	32. Let's Go To Paris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Tooth rotting fluff, like actually, I'm not joking  
> -Hest

“Are you sure you’ll be okay to be in there?” James asks, laying his hand a top of Thomas’s which was glued to the stick gear. Thomas looks over and smiles weakly.

“Yeah,” Thomas murmurs. James tries to smile, which is hard for him to do, especially recently. Thomas was so… unresponsive to the whole situation. It was like he didn’t even realize what had happened. His house caught on fire, but Thomas was so calm about it. Though James would be lying if he said he also wasn’t glad Thomas was living with him, now they didn’t have to neglect one place and only stay at the other, but he felt bad that it was Thomas’s that had burnt. 

“Uh, let’s go in, there’s something I need to find,” Thomas said as he opens his car door and hopped out, followed shortly by James doing the same. They met at the front of the car and held hands as they both stared up at the house. You could see the inside from the windows and broken door, but there wasn’t anything to see, it was all burnt out. Big black markings flow out of the windows from where the fire and smoke was. It looked pretty pathetic. 

“Are you  _ sure _ you can do this?” James repeats, tightening his grip only slightly on Thomas’s hand. Thomas looks down and smiles at him. He’s been oddly quiet since the fire, granted it’s only been three days, but any quiet is probably slightly odd for Thomas. 

“I can,” Thomas answers, looking back up at the house. James bites his bottom lip as he watches Thomas scan the house. He reaches up on his tiptoes and pecks Thomas on the cheek. Thomas looks surprised and covers the spot, looking down to James. 

“What was  _ that  _ for?” Thomas asked with a shock look plastered on his face. “I mean, I’m not complaining,” Thomas smirks a bit. James watches Thomas and reaches back up to kiss him. Thomas smiles against James’s lips, which made James smile. 

“Are you ready to go inside?” James asks quietly, only slightly pulling away from Thomas. He laughs and connects their lips again. 

“I am five-hundred percent sure, James, let’s go inside,” Thomas says, inter-locking their fingers together and starting to walk towards the house. James follows quickly behind as Thomas walks through the threshold with the door broken in, with a hinge off the doorframe. 

“Be careful, I’m not sure if this part of the house will like break, but just to be safe, stay close,” Thomas says as he holds James’s hand. He’s cold again, something about it makes James nervous. Whenever he’s cold he’s always… weird. It’s hard to explain. 

“I can do that,” James says as he follows the steps Thomas takes. They room is black with burnt up fabric and plants. They walk into the next room, most likely the kitchen. The counters were either burnt or were covered in char, the fridge and stove were in their place all black and flaky. Thomas was silent, looking down at the ground trying to walk around the burnt wood on the floor. 

James looked up at Thomas, with soft eyes. Thomas looked calm, like none of it really fazed him. He’s been like that since the day after he found Monticello up in flames. At first James wasn’t worry, he had cried at Monticello, so he assumed he’d cry again. But he didn’t, he didn’t even talk about it, which honestly scared him more than anything. James knew it was normal for people to be in denial and all, but James assumed he would’ve cried at least once. 

“What a waste of good mac n’ cheese,” Thomas frowned, gesturing to the fridge. James fell a bit and stumbled, putting his hands out on instinct, and making Thomas wobble. They steadied each other and started towards the next door. They make their way through the doorway, into the living room. The room now just a black husk of what it was. Thomas kneels down besides a pile of rubbish and digs through it, his hands covered in soot. James continues through the room towards the couches and the little burnt coffee table. 

“Hey, Thomas, do you-,” James turns back over to Thomas. All he could see was his back, but something seemed off. James hobbles carefully over to Thomas. A loud sniffle comes from Thomas and James crouches down next to him, laying a hand on his back. He leans over and watches his face, tears are forming in his eyes and he’s frowning. A few tear tracks roll down his cheeks and he sniffles.

“Thomas, oh no,” James leans against his shoulder and takes his hand. Thomas holds James’s hand tighter. 

“James, I’m scared,” Thomas mumbles. James wraps his arms around Thomas’s shoulders and holds him closer. “Like I  _ love _ living with you, more than anything, but this was my house and it’s burnt. All my memories, and just everything is gone,” Thomas whispers, his voice wasn’t breaking. James didn’t care, if he was honest he was bad at consoling people who were crying, but he was happy Thomas was at least talking about it. 

“I just need to find something,” Thomas says, rubbing at his cheeks and brushing away at his eyes. 

“Then let’s find it, come on,” James says, awkwardly pulling Thomas up. Once they were both standing up right Thomas looked down at James with a small smile on his lips. “What?” James scrunched up his nose and smiles. Thomas leans down and kisses James, he was warmer than he was before, but still cold. 

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” Thomas smirks, pulling away from him. James could feel his face heat up and he scrunches up his nose and smiles embarrassedly.  _ I can kiss him with no problem, but the moment he kisses me I get all flustered, what the heck? _ “Now let’s go and find it,” Thomas says, pulling James away, towards the hallway. The halls have that dark grey-black color, this time covering every inch of the place. The picture frames on the wall were virtually useless, some of the frames were even melted, most with burn marks on the frame and the picture. 

As they approach a staircase Thomas sighs disapprovingly, “We have to go up the stairs, are you okay with coming?” James looked wearily up at the stairs, with a few missing steps and a big piece of wood across the first few steps. James took a deep breath and looked up at Thomas.

“Yeah,” James answers. Thomas nods and they make their way towards the staircase. James looks at the big beam, or whatever, on the first few steps.  _ I’m bad at walking up stairs that  _ don’t  _ have beams and broken steps, let alone ones that do _ , James thinks, his shoulders slumping down. 

“Here,” Thomas says, pushing James closer to the base of the stairs. James looked up at Thomas with a confused look and asked what he was doing. “Okay, get ready,” Thomas says. 

“What am I ge- Oh Gosh,” James stutters as Thomas puts his hands on James’s waist and lifts him up and over the beam, plopping him down on a step. James looked down at the step, then back up at Thomas, erupting into laughter. Thomas looked up, one leg over the beam and  his arms holding onto it. 

“Y’know I could’ve just walked over the beam like you did,” James points out. Thomas snickers and shrugs, dusting off parts of his jeans. 

“I know, I just like picking you up,” Thomas shrugs as he takes James’s hand again, leading him through bit of garbage on the staircase. James smiles and shakes his head and watches his feet as they step over piles of ash and wood. 

Suddenly his foot falls through one of the planks on the staircase. James’s heart lurches as he falls, dropping a few swear words as he does. Thomas loops his arm under James’s and pulls him back up. James took a few seconds to catch his breath and clasp a hand to his chest. 

“I think I saw my life flash before my eyes,” James laughs, still breathless. Thomas snickers and reaches down, kissing James.  _ Every time he kisses me my heart flutters, what am I? A twelve year-old girl? _ James mocks himself

“Okay, let’s go, it should be where I left it,” Thomas says as they quickly scale the staircase. The hallway was black, a few photographs and their frames scattered among the ash and burnt flooring. Thomas opens the door to his room and they walk in. You could still see the magenta sheets and the big mirror hanging on the wall, though both were covered in ash and burn marks. The closet door was still open and there were somethings sitting out on the table in the corner of his room. 

“Here, be careful, I need to find it,” Thomas mumbles the last half to himself as he hurries over to the closet, pushing aside the tatters that were once clothing. He starts digging through a bin at the bottom of the closet that James had never seen. “Here it is!” Thomas cheers. He pulls the box out, turns around, then sits cross-legged on the floor, completely ignoring the ash and soot every where.

“Shit, the lock melted,” Thomas bites his lip then looks around the room, his eyes falling on something that was probably one of those fancy letter openers. He snatches it and starts trying the jimmy the lid open. After a while the lid pops open and James hears Thomas breath an “Oh thank God” before standing up and pulling James out of the room. 

“We’ll look through this in the car,” Thomas beams, pulling James down the stairs he lunges over the beam at the bottom of the stairs and James looks at him with a skeptical look.

“You can’t possibly expect me to do that,” James asks. Thomas laughs and holds out a hand. James takes it and steadies himself as he hops over the beam. They jog carefully out of the house until they’re out in the yard again. It was getting pretty late and the sun was setting, making the sky glow with vivid red and purples and pinks. 

They make their way to the car and sit in the front seats, Thomas with the box in his lap. James watches as Thomas slowly opens the lid and smiles down at everything in it. James leans over to see a hodge-podge of various items. There was a small white book labeled “ _ Favorite Pictures _ ”, a few gold medals and silver ones, postcards, and other various items. 

“Oh my God, look at this,” Thomas laughs, pulling out a pacifier. It’s green with a little rubber duck printed on the center. “It’s my old binky,” Thomas smiles, placing it carefully back into the box. He pulls out a gold metal labeled “1st Place” and little decorations around it. 

“This is the first gold medal I ever received, I got when I turned six for a school project, I think it had something to do with architect, I’m not sure,” Thomas shrugs, showing the medal to James. He smiles and places it back in the box. 

“Oh hey, do you remember this place?” Thomas says, handing a small business card to James. He turns it over in his hand, it reads “ _ Dent Sucrée Cafe _ ” a nice little pattern swirling around it. A sudden wave of realization swept over James. 

“The cafe we went to after you confessed to me!” James chirps. Thomas smiles and takes James’s free hand. James hands him the card and Thomas places it carefully back in the box. “You really kept that for that long?” James smiles, rubbing his thumb in small circles on Thomas’s hand. 

“Yeah, know why?” Thomas smiles, digging through the box for another trinket. James smiles up at Thomas. 

“Why?” James smiles. Thomas looks over with a smirk and kisses the back of James’s hand, making James’s heart flutter. 

“Because, I knew I’d fall in love with you,” Thomas hums as he continues to look through the box. James smiles and leans his head back against Thomas’s shoulder.  _ You don’t understand how much I love you, do you? _ James asks Thomas silently. 

“Oh God, old photos of me, gross,” Thomas cringes, looking down at the white book. James’s eyes light up and slid his hand out of Thomas’s, pulling the book out of his hands. He flips to the front of the book, a few pictures of a small Thomas. Even back then he had big hair and bright, expressive eyes. 

“You were such a cute child,” James giggles. Thomas covers his face and groans. He turns the page and there’s a few pictures of him at a zoo with starry eyes and excited faces. He turns the page and his eyes land on a Thomas that was probably around six or seven and a tall pretty woman. “Who’s that?” James asks, looking up at Thomas. He was frowning at the picture and looked over sheepishly at James. 

“It’s my Mom,” Thomas answers. James frowns and reaches up and kisses along Thomas’s jaw. Thomas smiles and places a hand on James’s face. “I’m fine, you don’t need to freak out about it, it’s been forever,” Thomas says, brushing a thumb across James’s cheek. James leans his head back onto Thomas’s shoulder. He turns the page, they looked through a bunch of pages filled with young Thomas and his dimpled smile. They turned the next page and there James was, right in the photo. It was from when they were in highschool and went to a school dance together. 

For a long time it was one of James’s favorite memories. It was a winter formal at their high school, with a blue, white, and silver theme. Thomas had on a navy, metallic, blue suit with a black tie that fight him perfectly. James had a black suit and a blue tie and was self-conscious about how he looked with it on. Thomas kept telling him how amazing he looked the entire night, effectively alleviating James’s anxiety. They danced almost the whole entire night, but they ended up sneaking away after the teachers told everyone to leave, because some douchebag decided to spike the punch bowl. James didn’t drink the punch, because he was allergic to something in it, but Thomas had and was acting loopy and flirty. They weren’t sure what to do most of the night, so they ended up on a play set near the school. Thomas pulled James away to this little gazebo on the edge of the park. The gazebo was this little white place with a few picnic tables and was surrounded by weeping willows and a few Magnolia trees, it was very picturesque. They sat and talked a while until one thing lead to another and they started to make out. It was James first kiss, and the first time he had ever made out with someone. 

“Do you remember this?” James smiles up at Thomas and points to the picture. Thomas smiles and stares into James’s eyes. 

“Yeah, and I remember how good you looked,” Thomas smirked, leaning down and kissing James again. James laughs and continues through the pages. Thomas holds out his hand to stop at a page and points to a picture. Thomas looked like he was seventeen or eighteen and he was posing goofily at the Eiffel Tower. His hair was big and he had a white button up, black slacks, and a magenta colored bowtie. 

“This was the first time I ever went to the Eiffel Tower,” Thomas explains. James smiles at the picture. “I’m going to take you there one day,” Thomas hums, his eyes staying on the picture. James smiles. 

“We’ll go to the top of the Eiffel Tower at sunset and kiss, it’ll be like a fairy tale,” Thomas smiles, leaning his head on top of James’s. “And we’ll go to the Louvre and we’ll hold hands and eat at cute little cafes. And you can meet my Dad and stepmom. And it’ll be like one big dream,” Thomas smiles. They sit in silence for a few more seconds. 

“Tell me more,” James mumbles. Thomas kisses the top of James’s head. James could hear his heart beating in his ears and the butterflies in his stomach felt more like bees. 

“We’ll go to plays, and go to the Pantheon,” Thomas’s voice is a low song and he’s warm and strong. James got lost in the moment, everything felt nice and perfect and happy. James felt like his heart would explode from how happy he was. 

“And we’ll go to big churches with huge stain glass windows, like Sainte-Chapelle, and we’ll walk through the halls in the evening, holding hands, and talking as the windows cast colorful shadows on us,” Thomas explains. James smiles, he can imagine how amazing Thomas would look. He’d be in a black sweater and green jacket and red scarf with a big smile and that amazing laugh. 

“I want to go to Paris with you,” James mutters. Thomas smiles and kisses at James’s forehead. Thomas gasps as pulls a hand away from James and tilts his head up. James looks down at the box as Thomas pulls a small black velvet box from the little fire-proof safe. 

“What is that?” James asks, pulling at the sleeve of his sweater. Thomas flips it open and scoffs softly and turns the box so James could see what it was. The inside of the box is white with a small gold band sticking out of the slit between two pieces of fabric. Thomas slides the ring out of the box, turning it over in his hand. 

“It’s my Dad’s old engagement ring, from when my Mom proposed to him,” Thomas smiles down at the ring then up at James. He smiles and kisses James.

“I like the ring,” James says as Thomas hands it to him. He starts flipping it over in his hands. The gold band has a silver line going across the middle. James flips the ring between his fingers one more time then hands the ring back to Thomas. 

“Good,” Thomas smiles, nuzzling his shoulder closer to his. James scoffs and takes Thomas’s hand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a revelation on Saturday:  
> Navi and I: *Watching a program about a singer that got together with his manager*  
> Me: "I don't understand how people can get together with their manager, like how??"  
> Navi: "Well, that's basically Personal Business"  
> Me: *Brain cracking from the realization* "Oh my"


	33. Perfect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff ft. Hest's obsession with cheesy love-songs  
> -Hest

“James! Come here Babe!” Thomas calls from the living room. James opens his eyes and stirs in his sleep, feeling around for Thomas. He wasn’t there. James pushes up from the bed, laying his legs over the edge of the bed. “Jaaaaaames, come hereeee,” Thomas whines from the living room. James smiles tiredly and walks to the door, rubbing at his eyes. James pushes open the door and looks over at Thomas, who was propped up on the counter. He had on a black shirt with the University of Paris logo on the front and red pajama bottoms. 

“What are you doing?” James yawns. Thomas smiles and pushes off of the counter, walking towards James. 

“I was hungry so I made late dinner, come eat with me,” Thomas explains, taking James’s hand and swinging it back and forth. 

“What do you means, it’s,” James looks back at the clock on the stove, “Eleven at night. You can’t expect me to be hungry?” Thomas pouts and motions to the small table they had bought a few days ago. James quickly found out how rich Thomas was before the house burnt, but he was especially rich after the insurance money came in. They went to Ikea once it came in and bought a bunch of new furniture. They bought a new bed, a table, new couches, and a bunch of decorations. “The Thomas Touch” was what Thomas said as an explanation for his shopping spree. James had to admit, the apartment looked a lot nicer than it did before. 

“Exactly, why shouldn’t we have a beautiful candle-lit dinner at eleven?” Thomas jokes. James looked back at the table, it had two candlesticks and nice dinner placements for the two of them. The placemats were this soft green that matched the light brown walls and the plates and forks were laid perfectly. 

James sighs and watches Thomas. “Fine,” James gives in. Thomas’s face lights up and pulls James to a chair. 

“Great, sit here while I get the food,” Thomas smiles, pushing James in. He laughs and smoothes out the place mat as he watches Thomas hurry around the kitchen, picking up various bowls and plates. He brought back six plates. One was a pile of sauteed vegetables, another a plate of two steaks, and a basket (which James honestly didn’t even know they owned) full of baguettes. 

“Did you make all of this?” James says as he scans the table of food. Thomas laughs and shakes his head, his messy hair whipping around. 

“I stopped by a store to buy some things, but most of it, yes, I did make,” Thomas smiles as he pulls out a small bottle of wine and pours it into the two bottles on their place mats. Thomas sits down across from James and smiles happily. 

“I love you,” Thomas smirks, laying his head on his palm. James scoffs and looks down at his plate. 

“What did you do that you need to suck up?” James jokes. Thomas fakes like he’s offended, striking this dramatic pose. He gasps and let his mouth hang open. 

“I just wanted to show you that I love you,” Thomas laughs. James raises and eyebrow and Thomas chuckles. “Seriously though, I feel like I haven’t shown you how much I love you lately, so I wanted to do this for you!” Thomas smiles. James smiles softly. 

“You tell me you love me all the time,” James chuckles, placing a steak on his plate and shovels some vegetables onto the plate. 

“I know, but it’s one thing to tell you I love you, and a whole other thing to show you,” Thomas smiles, placing some mashed potatoes on his plate. 

“I’m fine with either one, Thomas, you don’t need to make a big dinner every time you want to say I love you. Trust me, I love this, but my heart flutters whenever you say you love me,” James smiles down at his plate, shoving some asparagus around with his fork. He looks up and sees Thomas giving him a soft grin. 

“You’re absolutely beautiful,” Thomas hums. James smiles. 

“I love you Thomas,” James answers. 

\----------

Music plays as they sit and eat, talking about work and things that happened at various times of the day. The song changes and the a soft tune starts to play. Thomas’s face folded in confusion then as the voice started his eyes light up. James vaguely knew the song from Thomas mumbling the lyrics around the house. He had recently started loving Ed Sheeran music and other cheesy music like that.

“ _ I found a love for me,”  _ the radio sings. Thomas pushes up and out of his chair, pulling James up too. 

“Let’s dance, I love this song!” Thomas smiles. James hesitates and looks down at his plate, most of the foo was gone. 

“I’m not sure, I can’t really dance,” James laughs nervously. Thomas raises an eyebrow and smirks. 

“ _ Follow my lead _ ,” Thomas sings along with the lyrics of the song. James laughs and walks to a small place between where the carpet of the living room and the wood of the kitchen meet. Thomas pulls James close, which ended with each other pressed against each other. Thomas hums as he places his hands on James’s hips, James placing his hand on Thomas’s shoulders. They start swaying back and forth to the music. 

“ _ I never knew you were the someone waiting for me,’cause we were just kids when we fell in love _ ,” the radio plays. James adjust his head so he can look up at Thomas. He was looking down at James and smiled softly.  _ This song is perfect _ , James thought as the song continued to play.

“ _ I will not give you up, this time, so Darlin’ just kiss me slow _ ,” Thomas leaned down only a bit and kissed james. He pulled away as the next line played. James giggles at how cheesy Thomas was acting because of the sing. 

“ _ Your heart is all I own, and in your eyes you’re holding mine,”  _ the song sings. James smiles, laying his head back against Thomas’s chest. 

“ _ Baby, I’m dancing in the dark, with you between my arms, barefoot on the grass. We’re listening to our favorite song, _ ” the song blares. Thomas crosses his arms at the wrist, pulling James even closer. 

“ _ When you said you looked a mess, I whispered underneath my breath, you heard it, Darlin’ you look perfect tonight, _ ” Thomas sang along to the lyrics. He lays his head on top of James and they sway to the beat. James tried to calm his beating heart by focusing on the lyrics, but every time he did Thomas would do something and make his heart beat even faster than before.

“ _ I found a lover, to carry more than just my secrets, to carry love, to carry children of our own _ ,” Thomas hummed along to the beat. Despite James’s best efforts his mind flooded with the thought of Thomas and James standing in front of a nice little house with children around their ankles and a baby in Thomas’s arms. The thought made James’s face heat up and he snuggled his face deeper into Thomas’s chest.

“ _ We are still children, but we’re so in love. Fighting against all odds, I know we’ll be alright this time _ ,” Thomas sang along to the songs with a soft voice. James’s face heated up every time Thomas sang along to the lyrics, he felt like Thomas was telling it to him, not singing along to the song. 

“ _ I see my future in your eyes _ ,” Thomas sings, pulling James’s chin up towards him and smiling. “ _ Baby, I’m dancing in the dark, with you between my arms, _ ” Thomas smiles. James smiles back up, James was sure his face was red and he probably looked super flustered. 

“ _ I don’t deserve this, Darlin’ you look perfect tonight _ ,” Thomas sings in a low hum. James smiles and rests his chin against Thomas’s chest so he could look up at Thomas. 

“ _ Baby, I’m dancing in the dark, with you between my arms, bare foot on the grass, we’re listening to our favorite song. I have faith in what I see, now I know I have met an angel in person, and he looks perfect _ ,” Thomas sings to James, “ _ I don’t deserve this, you look perfect tonight _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, I've wanted to make this chapter since I first heard the song. (P.S. It's "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran)  
> Also also, this is the end of a like three to five month time skip, we're going into this big arc soon, so we wanted a bunch of time to pass! So get ready for a coolio arc! *thumbs up*  
> -Hest


	34. An Important Case

“Thomas get your ass into the meeting room, you too James,” Angelica barks as she hurries away to a different part of the floor. James looks up at Thomas with a confused look. Thomas shrugs and slides off of James’s desk. 

“Better get going before she pulls us there by the ear,” Thomas smiles. James nods and they start walking towards the small glass-wall room. 

“What do you think the meeting’s about?” James asks, craning his neck to look up at him. Thomas looks down and slips his hand into James’s hand. 

“With Angelica you never really know,” Thomas shrugs. James nods and looks down at their interlocked hands, smiling softly. They approach the glass room, Lafayette, Hercules, John, and Alex all sitting in the room, talking to one another. James opens the door, slipping his hand out of Thomas’s and they walk in. 

“Do you two know what this is about?” John asks, pointing a finger at them. Thomas and James look at each other then look back down to him, both shaking their heads. “Jeez, neither do we, not even Alexander,” John frowns. James notices the slight falter in Alex’s face when John says “Alexander”.

“Yeah she just yelled into the break room to come here,” Hercules nods. Thomas shrugs and pulls James into a seat next to him. Angelica storms into the room, with Maria jogging behind her, crashing into the seat next to James. 

“All of you shut up and listen, we have a very important case that we need to get right,” Angelica announces, sitting down in her chair at the head of the table. James looks back at Thomas and shrugs. Angelica pulls out a pile of manilla folders and starts passing them around the table. James and Thomas take one, opening it to a victim sheet and a small mugshot clipped to the front. 

“This is a murder case, so it’s already important, but the person that was murdered is a close Schuyler family friend and the son of a big corporate company founder. So we can’t fuck this up,” Angelica insists. Suddenly someone’s hand slides onto James’s thigh. James looks down, his face bright red, and sees Thomas’s hand sliding along his thigh. James looks up and sees Thomas’s leaning his chin against his palm and watching Angelica. Thomas’s eyes flicker over to James and he smirks. James raises his eyebrows and presses his lips together, Thomas winks in response. 

“I’m going to need all of you to only focus on this case for a while, so pay  _ full _ attention,” Angelica frowns looking around at the table. James looks down at his thigh, Thomas’s hand still on it, and nibbles at his lip.  _ Not gonna lie, this is turning me on, and I’d really appreciate if he’d stop _ , James think as he tries to decide on how to get Thomas to stop. James knew if he tried to call Thomas out everybody'd freak. If he slapped Thomas’s hand or pulled it away Thomas would go right back to his thigh. And he knew if he whispered something to Thomas’s ear Angelica would yell at him. After a few more possibilities, all of which were promptly dismissed, he decided to just pretend like nothing was going on. 

“The Boreo family’s oldest son, Jared, was shot three times in his upper body,” Angelica explains, flipping up a few papers, promptly followed by everyone else. “Police are unsure if the murderer was a stranger or a person that knew Jared,” Angelica continues with a practiced, cold tone. James’s mind felt oddly clouded and like he couldn’t concentrate on Angelica or what she was saying. James kept looking over to Thomas, whether it be from annoyance or embarrassment, he can’t tell. 

“One shot near his collarbone, one near his heart, and one above his stomach,” Angelica says, pointing at the sheet with the end of a pen. James looks over at Thomas and gives him a pleading look to stop, but all he does is smirk and wink. 

“James, you seem a bit distracted,” Angelica says, looking up from the manilla folder. James whips his head towards Angelica and smiles nervously. 

“Sorry ma’am,” James says awkwardly as Thomas pulls his hand closer to the top of his thigh and drawing little circles on his thigh. 

“Is this your first murder case?” Angelica asks, her eyes seem bored even though she’s the one continuing the conversation. Thomas continues and James panics for a second, wondering if he didn’t have to answer Angelica, though he knew it wouldn’t be a good idea. 

“Uhm, yes ma’am, it is,” James said smalley, trying to make sure his voice doesn’t waver from Thomas’s touch. Thomas seems to find the situation very funny though, because his smirk just keeps growing. 

“Alright, well, I’m sure Thomas’ll be able to help you,” Angelica smiles, looking back to the case files. 

“Sure can do,” Thomas smirks, looking over at James with hungry eyes. James wants to say some snarky comment but he was too flustered to say anything. Angelica shrugs and starts going back to the case. 

“He was shot in a back alley of the shopping district. Between…,” Angelica squints at the paper, “The Nine and a Half and the Forever 21.” John nods and skims through the other papers. 

“Can I ask, was he a well liked guy? Was he into drugs or anything along those lines, where he’d need to pay someone?” John asks, shutting the folder and looking up at Angelica. She smiled sadly at the photo of Jared. 

“He was well liked, but there were a few people that probably hated him, obviously, he was suppose to inherit a huge company. And, no, as far as I know. Jared was a smart kid, he knew his father wouldn’t let him take the company if he was a drug addict, so I don’t think he’d use,” Angelica answers. There was a collective nod among the group. 

“Were there any cameras around the alley? Like from  _ anywhere _ , we might be able to see someone enter at the time that Jared was shot,” Alex asks. Angelica nods and looks through the folder. 

“Nobody’s looked into it, but I’ll get someone to look into it,” Angelica nods, writing a tiny note on a blank sheet of paper at the back of the folder. 

“Would it be alright if I give my,” Angelica pauses, “first impressions.” Everyone looks around out of confusion, it was unusual for Angelica to give her thoughts on cases. She was the type of person who made sure she knew everything about the case, she wasn’t a “gut feeling” type of person. Everybody knew this, probably even the new intern, so everybody knew it was serious. 

“Go ahead,” Alex nods. Thomas scoffs and rolls his eyes.  _ How petty  can you be? _ James thought. Angelica studies the folder.

“I believe it has to do with Howard Foiler, the company’s CEO, he’s the type of man that….does what he needs to do to get to the top. He’s also a very aggressive man and very drastic,” Angelica says slowly. Thomas had stopped his hand on James’s thigh, and Thomas was staring at Angelica. 

“Should we try to get a permit for his bank statements? See if there were any withdrawals or payments for sketchy items?” Maria asks. Angelica thinks for a second, licking at the corners of her mouth. 

“Yes, we need as much evidence as we can,” Angelica nods. Maria nods and writes a note about the task on the front of the folder. 

“Okay people, I’ll e-mail all of you about any new developments on the case, and in the meantime read up about the case,” Angelica instructs, pushing up from her chair and striding out of the room before anyone else could even stand up. Everybody exchange looks and shrugged, unsure of what to make of Angelica’s franticness. 

“Let’s go,” Thomas says, pulling at James’s sleeve. James looks up and nods, shuffling all of his stuff into his folder. They walk out of the room and start making their way to Thomas’s office. 

“What do you think about the case?” Thomas asks, sticking his hands into his pockets. James looks up at Thomas with an annoyed glare. “What?” Thomas scoffs softly. James gives him a face that says “Really??”. 

“What do you think you were doing during the meeting?” James whispers frantically, looking around to make sure nobody was listening to them. Thomas opens the door to his office, laughing as he does. 

“Oh come on James,” Thomas hums, taking James’s hand and pulling him into his chest. James frowns up at Thomas, Thomas smirking in response. He starts running his fingers along James’s leg. “You know you liked it,” Thomas smirks. James raises his eyebrow and rolls his eyes. 

“I made a fool of myself because of you,” James glares up at Thomas, folding his arms across his chest. Thomas laughs and walks over to his desk. He hops onto it and sits, wide-legged, leaning his weight back on his arms. 

“Aw, you’re so mean Maddy!” Thomas flirts. James sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. He walks up to Thomas, standing between his leg and holding at Thomas’s waist. 

“Angelica probably thought I was about to wet myself or something,” James sighs, laying his head down on Thomas’s chest. Thomas places his hands on James’s cheeks and pulls his head up so they’re face to face. 

“Don’t worry Babe, you just looked like you were having a panic attack,” Thomas says cheerily. James scoffs, and closes his eyes. 

“Oh my God, that’s embarrassing,” James smiles weakly. 

“I thought it was cute, you getting all flustered and everything,” Thomas hums. James laughs and looks away, his cheeks heating up a bit. “Aw, lil’ Maddy getting all flustered, so cute!” Thomas chirps, laying kisses along James’s cheeks. 

“Shush Thomas, gosh,” James snickers. Thomas smiles, holding onto James’s hands. The door opens and they both turn. Alex enters the room, and looks up at them with a bored face. He doesn’t even respond to what was happening, he walks forward and hand them pieces of paper with more information. 

“Angelica forgot these,” Alex explains, turning back towards the door. “I’ll let you two get back to reading the case file,” Alex adds sarcastically. He saunters out of the room and shuts the door behind him. 

“Gross,” Thomas whispers underneath his breath as the door clicks shut. James takes note of this and pretends like he didn’t hear it. 

“We should actually read the case file,” James admits. Thomas frowns and groans, tilting his head forward onto James’s shoulder. 

“Can’t you at least sit in my office with me?” Thomas pouts against James’s shoulder. James laughs and lays a hand on Thomas’s head. 

“Why? We won’t be talking, we’ll be reading,” James smiles softly. Thomas lifts his head and looks down at James. 

“I know, but I just like looking at you,” Thomas points out. This, of course, makes James blush. The reaction, of course, made Thomas happy. He starts kissing at James’s cheeks, saying “Please just sit in here?” between kisses. James holds onto Thomas’s face, laughing and trying to pull his face away. 

“Fine, fine, I’ll sit in here,” James gives in with a giggle. Thomas smiles happily and nods, pulling him over to two chairs at the corner of the room. They sit in the separate chairs and start reading the files, James pulls out his pen and starts nibbling at the end out of boredom. 

“Jaaaaamessss,” Thomas says after a while. James doesn’t bother to look up from the folder.

“What?” James asks, scratching at his scalp with the pen. Thomas rolls his head onto James’s shoulder, this also didn’t pull James’s attention away from the folder. 

“I’m bored Babe,” Thomas whines. James rolls his eyes, trying to concentrate on the sentence he was trying to read. Thomas pulls at James’s hand. 

“Baaaaaabe,” Thomas calls. James rolls his eyes and tries to reread the sentence. 

“Read the case file,” James scolds. Thomas looks at James with an annoyed look. A few more minutes pass as they read the files when Thomas starts up again. 

“James, Maddy, Babe,” Thomas coes as he kisses at James’s cheek bone. James scrunches up his nose and closes his eyes. 

“I’m trying to read,” James insists, regaining his composure and continuing on the paper. Thomas’s head slumps slightly and looks up at James, but he doesn’t look back. 

“Maddy,” Thomas says in a suggestive tone. James flickers his eyes at Thomas for a millisecond, but then looks back down to the files. 

“Hmph, fine,” Thomas said with an annoyed tone. James rolls his eyes and pulls the folder closer to his face in a feeble attempt to concentrate. Thomas stands up and looks James up and down, like he was trying to decide on something. A sly smirk grows across Thomas’s face. He walks over to the office door and clicks the lock, James doesn’t look up. Then he walks back and Thomas slides onto James’s lap, straddling him and his hands on James’s hips. James looks up from the folder for a second, his face red and flustered. Thomas takes note and scooches forward, his hands running further up James’s sides. 

“Thomas,” James says disapprovingly. Thomas doesn’t respond, he just moves his fingertips underneath James’s shirt. “Thomas!” James says again, this time quieter, in more of a hushed plead.

“I’m trying to read,” James says, looking over to the door, half expecting someone to walk in and see the two. James’s eyes get pulled back to Thomas as he pulls James’s tie from between his shirt and his sweater. Thomas smirks when he notices James’s eyes on him. He starts undoing his own tie, James squirms around from his anxiety. He was worried that someone would come in, because they always do, always. 

Thomas tugs one last time and his tie unravels at his neck. James gulps and looks awkwardly at the unravelled tie. Thomas pushes his black suit jacket to his elbows, to where it pools at the crook of his arms. 

“Thomas, someone’s going to walk in,” James warns, ending up trailing out as he watches Thomas move around. Thomas starts unbuttoning his shirt and smirks, his eyes hungry and sultry. 

“The door’s locked Maddy, nothing to worry about,” Thomas hums as he wraps his arms around James’s neck. James bites at his lip and looks over at the door. 

“Thomas I don’t know about this,” James mumbles as Thomas leans down and almost kisses James. Thomas knew exactly what got James all hot and bothered. It’s the almosts that make James go mad,  _ almost  _ kissing,  _ almost  _ touching,  _ almost  _ going  _ there _ . James knew he knew, and it bugged him, but also made him happy. James felt like his lungs were closing up, he was breathing a tiny bit harder and he felt nervous. James was worried that his heart was beating so fast that Thomas could hear it. 

“We’re supposed to be reading our case files,” James mumbles, but his brain is so distracted he stumbles over almost all of the words. His senses are filled with Thomas, his nerve ending feel like they’re working thirty times harder than usual. All he can smell is the scent that’s taken up their bathroom, the smell of Old Spice, he never liked Old Spice until Thomas. His mind focuses on where Thomas is touching him, on his waist, against his legs, even his breath against his lips. These are all places he’s hated, until Thomas came and told him he loved him, even in the places James liked least. His vision fills with Thomas, his beautiful beautiful self. James was proud to call someone like Thomas his. And as Thomas kisses James all he can taste is the cherry of his lips. All he can think is how beautiful and perfect Thomas is. Through all of his fucking stupid decisions he’s still amazing and beautiful and warm. 

All he can focus on is Thomas. This person who he loves, and the person who loves him back. James’s everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I name this chapter after the new case, but we all know the main focus is the fluffy smut (?? Sure). Anyways, I don't think we're going to do another of the "pure", plain smut because *cough cough* //I'm too weak to do that//, but I hope you guys are ready for the craziness that are these next few chapters!!  
> Have a nice day!  
> -Hest


	35. New Developments

“Hey James, I need to warn you about something,” Thomas says wearily as he enters the room. James looks up from his book with a worried expression. 

“Yeah?” James has a slight waver in his voice as he says this. Thomas smiles and slides next to him on the couch. 

“Uhm, my dad and stepmom are coming, tomorrow, from France, to meet you,” Thomas smiles, he wasn’t sure how James was going to take it. He wasn’t really worried about if James would impress his parents, because James is James, he’s quiet and respectful and is liked by a lot of people, but his parents have a knack for embarrassing Thomas. They tell embarrassing little stories about Thomas and try to pass it off as adorable. James furrows his eyebrows and looks extremely scared. 

“Tomorrow, tomorrow, like Sunday, tomorrow?” James asks breathlessly. Thomas nods and James looks around with a scared expression. 

“We’re picking them up from the airport tomorrow, so we’ll have to clean up and stuff,” Thomas adds, looking over to the bowls around the room. James nods and frowns. 

“Thomas?” James asks, looking up at Thomas. He looks helpless, like he’s in imminent danger. 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you think your parents will like me?” James asks, he looks worried and scared. “I really want them to like me,” James adds with a worried frown on his face. Thomas smiles and takes James’s hand. 

“Of course they will, you’re absolutely amazing,” Thomas smiles warmly. James cracks a bit of a smile, but it’s still weary. 

“I’m not very good at talking to new people, I’ll probably embarrass myself,” James laments, looking down into the corner of his vision. 

“Don’t worry, my dad is really loud and talkative, so you won’t have to worry about that,” Thomas jokes. That seemed to make James a little bit easier. 

“And if he tells you anything about me as a child don’t listen to him,” Thomas adds quickly. James laughs, it’s soft and calming. 

“I’ll use it to make fun of you,” James pokes fun at Thomas.  _ No, he wouldn’t. Oh God what about the Halloween one?  _ Thomas worries about all his Dad’s favorite stories. 

“No! Don’t,” Thomas objects, jumping onto James and holding him down. James was lying on his back, with Thomas on top, holding him down by the wrists. They were both giggling. 

“I’m going to, and I’ll tell everybody at work,” James threatens. 

“Don’t!” Thomas laughs, starting to tickle at James’s stomach. James starts laughing and squirming around under Thomas. 

“Thomas! Stop!” James breathes through crazy laughter. This makes Thomas work even quicker. James starts fighting back, trying to tickle Thomas back. After a few seconds James manages to get Thomas to fall onto the floor on his back. Thomas pushes up on his elbows as James jumps on top of him. James sits on Thomas’s stomach and hold Thomas’s hands out at his sides. 

“Ha! I won!” James beams. Thomas smirks and nods. 

“You wanna know what your prize is?” Thomas asks. James laughs and gazes down at Thomas and his smirk. 

“What?” James asks, he looked happy and like he forgot about all of his anxieties about Thomas’s parents. Which made Thomas happy. Thomas reaches his head up the best he could and kisses James. James closes his eyes and removes his hands from Thomas’s arms and cups Thomas’s face. Thomas smiles against James’s lips and wraps his arms around James’s neck. 

“I’m still going to make fun of you because of those stories,” James snickers as he pulls his lips away from Thomas. They both laugh. 

\-------------

Thomas hums quietly as he sits with James in his arms. His amazingly beautiful boyfriend. James’s chest was steadily rising and falling as they watch X Files, it’s been a usual thing since the Dolley incident. It was Thomas’s idea, but James (though begrudgingly) agreed to it. They sit, almost every night, and watch X Files, they always end up cuddling, which is Thomas’s favorite part of the night.

Having James, this amazing, gorgeous person, so close to him was one of Thomas’s favorite things.  _ Scratch that, _ Thomas thinks,  _ it’s my favorite thing _ . James was always so warm, before Thomas and James started going out Thomas was constantly cold, but now he was so warm and felt like he was glowing. When he told his stepmother this she jokingly said “Maybe he thawed your heart out”, it was probably true. Thomas felt so much more alive with James around. When their hands were intertwined he felt so amazing, when they were lying next to eachother in bed he felt so alive, James gave Thomas this… euphoria that he couldn’t put into words. 

James was so amazingly perfect to Thomas. His short hair was always soft and is the color of dark chocolate, and it always smells like strawberries, it’s wonderful. His eyes are soft and that inviting brown color, they were so pretty to look at. For such a big, broad guy James is so soft. Like everything is curved and fuzzy. James’s smile is soft and he has these little dimples, they’re not that big, but they’re still beautiful. Everything about James seemed to be beautiful. 

The entire day was spent cleaning up the apartment and deciding on where everybody would sleep. His parents were going to sleep on Thomas and James’s bed, while Thomas and James would sleep on the pull out couch. They barely sat down the entire day so they were both pretty tired. 

“Thomas,” James says, looking up at Thomas. 

“Yeah?” Thomas asks softly. James looks a bit perplexed, but Thomas was sure it was about something going on in the show. James had this tendency to ask about the show and what was happening. 

“You should forgive Alex,” James says plainly. A wave of confusion washes over Thomas, he readjusts uncomfortably. 

“What? Why?” Thomas asks with a dazed tone. James smiled a little at the look on his face, making Thomas smile. 

“Alex feels like shit for it, what he did, but I think he deserves to be forgiven,” James says slowly, like he was trying to decide on the right words. Thomas thought for a few seconds. 

“I don’t know James,” Thomas says wearily. Thomas  _ knew _ he couldn’t tell James the reason he still held a grudge over Alex, it’s stupid and could’ve just as easily worked against him. He just felt that Alex had set him up, and Thomas was still kinda pissed about it. 

“Thomas, Alex feels really crappy about it. He’s already apologized to me, and I’ve forgiven him. You should try to talk to him,” James explains with a soft look. Thomas’s mind wandered to how Alex “apologized” to him when they were “together”, then shook it away. He knew James and Alex just talked, but that little green man in the very back corner of his brain still thought. 

“I still don’t know, but I guess I will,” Thomas caves in. James smiles, but there was something in his eyes, something was wrong. 

“What?” Thomas asks skeptically. James’s smile got bigger and he furrowed his eyebrows together. 

“What, what?” James asks. Thomas sighs.

“Are you,” Thomas felt bad for asking and didn’t really blame James for whatever doubt he was imagining, “worried?” James looks off and scratches at his cheek. 

“No?” James said quietly. It was supposed to come out as a statement, but ended up sounding like a question. 

“If you’re really worried you can come with me,” Thomas offers. James scoffs and shakes his head. 

“No, I want you to do this alone, I  _ trust _ you Thomas,” James insists.  _ Doesn’t really seem like you do _ , the little green man said sarcastically. 

“Okay,” Thomas said simply. He wasn’t sure what else to say. Thomas knew he wouldn’t do anything, but he wanted James to know he wouldn’t. He just didn’t know how to show him. 

“Thomas,” James says again. Thomas looks down at James with a confused look on his face. James takes Thomas’s hand and kisses the back. “I  _ trust _ you,” James says as he looks back up to Thomas. Thomas smiles and kisses James. 

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll meet the parents tomorrow! (I'll work extra, extra hard to get it out!!)  
> -Hest


	36. Meet the Parents!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine child Thomas being a really happy kid even though his mom was a d-bag, maybe I'm wrong but that's just what I imagine!

James and Thomas were standing up on an elevated platform in the busy airport. The platform was surrounded by glass half walls, so they could see everybody on the floor below. Thomas’s parents’ flight was to their left and they would find them easily. Thomas and James were leaning against the glass walls, watching the people below. People were walking around quickly, some talking to people they haven’t seen in years, some talking into their phones, while other walked through the airport quickly with their head phones stuck in their ears. James’s heart was pounding out of his chest from the nerves of meeting Thomas’s parents.

“Their flight just landed,” Thomas warns, glancing back from the big TV screen that shows the flight schedules. James looks up and tries to smile the biggest he can. James was so nervous that he felt like he was going to throw up. He’s been worrying since Thomas told him.  _ What if they don’t like me? What if I embarrass myself? What if they hate me and don’t want Thomas to be with me? _ What ifs ran through his head constantly. 

“Are you ready to meet them?” Thomas asks. He didn’t seem half as nervous as James was, though James has learned not to judge Thomas’s emotions by how he acts.  _ He’s a remarkably good actor when it comes to hiding his feelings _ , James reminds himself. 

“I think so,” James laughs nervously. Thomas looks down at James and looks like he’s trying to decide what to say. He smiles and takes James’s hand. 

“They’re going to  _ love _ you, James,” Thomas insists. James laughs dryly and drops his head between his arms, the metal is cold against his forehead. 

“I’m not so sure about that,” James laughs, a bit too tiredly. Thomas moves his hand from James’s hand to his shoulder. This made James look up at him. 

“I  _ know _ they’ll like you James,” Thomas repeats. James props his chin against his palm with a small sigh. 

“How do you know?” James asks tiredly. Thomas smirks and wraps his arm around James’s shoulder, pulling his closer. 

“Because I fell in love you,” Thomas answers happily. James looks up at Thomas with a confused smile.   
“And what does that have to do with this,” James asks, skeptically. Thomas raises and eyebrow. 

“I fell for you, not because of your looks, but because of your personality,” Thomas explains. James smiles and looks down at the people sauntering by with their  luggage. “You’re my favorite person to talk to James, and I can promise you my parents will love to talk to you too,” Thomas insists. 

“Thanks, Thomas,” James smiles softly. Thomas gazes down at James with a small smile until his eyes flicker up, past James. Thomas’s face immediately brightens up and he starts waving his hand, cupping on hand around his mouth. 

“Dad! Mom!” Thomas yells. James looks back at sees two tall, skinny people turning towards Thomas. The guy was tall, probably only an inch or two shorter than Thomas, but he looked almost exactly like Thomas. He had the same shapes on his face, his eyes a tiny bit closer together, and had deeper wrinkles. His smile lines and crow's feel were a bit more defined, and the wrinkles at his forehead were prominent, even with the lines he still seemed young. His hair was shorter than Thomas’s and the sides are peppered with grey hairs. He had on a white button up and black slacks, extremely formal for a plane ride. The woman was also tall and skinny, she was the same age as Thomas’s dad but seemed a tiny bit younger. Her curly hair was pulled back by a small pink ribbon. And she had on a nice pastel yellow dress that was tight against her upper body and poofs out around her waist. They both already had their luggage and dropped them to the floor when they see Thomas. 

“Tommy!” the man booms, his voice is loud and jolly. Thomas laughs and grabs James’s hand, running over to his parents. As they reach the two Thomas lets go of James and wraps his arms around his dad. 

“Dad! Mom!” Thomas smiles hugging the two one at a time. James stands awkwardly, watching the three’s reunion. After the happy laughter and the “I’ve missed you so much” stopped exchanging. Thomas smiles back at James and takes his hand, smiling proudly back to his parents.

“This is my boyfriend, James,” Thomas introduces. Thomas’s father smiles and holds out a hand, James takes it and shakes. 

“Nice to meet you James,” Mr. Jefferson booms. James smiles softly and nods his head. 

“Nice to meet you too Mr. Jefferson,” James answers back. Mr. Jefferson smiles and laughs, looking back up at Thomas. 

“He’s polite, you could learn something from him Tommy,” Mr. Jefferson jokes. Thomas laughs and smiles down at James. 

“Oh, nice to meet you Mrs. Jefferson!” James says quickly, holding a hand out to Mrs. Jefferson. She smiles and takes his hand, shaking it firmly. 

“You too James,” She says lightly. Her voice is quiet but pretty and sounded like music, both of Thomas’s parents had French accents. 

“We better get going to the car before the parking toll times out,” Thomas suggests 

\-------------

“When Tommy was younger he had this one stuffed animal,” Mr. Jefferson laughs, “it was this big whale stuffed animal. It was light blue and was always  _ covered _ in stains. Like no matter how many times we washed it there was always some stain in it.” Mr. Jefferson acts like he’s having war flashbacks or something and James laughs. 

“Anyways he was obsessed with it and always had it with him, then one day he loses it when he was at the park. He  _ flipped _ when he realized it was missing, he forced me to help him scour the entire playground, and when we couldn’t find it he started  _ bawling _ . After an hour of just crying he decided to make these little crayon missing posters and hung them up all around the neighborhood,” Mr. Jefferson laughs. Thomas scoffs and shakes his head with a small smirk. 

“Somehow someone found it and they brought it to our house and Thomas opens the door, this tiny six year old Thomas opens the door and this big bulky guy is standing there, I come up behind him and the guy kneels down and fishes the stuffed animal out his bag and hands it to Thomas. I have never seen Thomas smile so big!” Mr. Jefferson booms. James laughs along with everybody else. Thomas smirks and looks out the window. 

“Oh, tell them about the Halloween one,” Mrs. Jefferson giggles. James looks back at her, then to Thomas. 

“Oh God, no,” Thomas groans rolling his eyes and shaking his head. James laughs and looks back at Mr. Jefferson as he starts up his loud stories again. 

“Okay, so Tommy, he’s five, it’s a few days before Halloween. I kneel down beside him and go “So what do you want to be this Halloween”, you know standard Dad stuff. And he looks up at me and smiles, he’s missing one of his front teeth and he has the big hair and he goes, “Daddy, I wanna be Cinderella”. I looked at him and said “Okay, great, we can go to the store and buy one” I tried to walk away, it wasn’t because I was bothered or anything I had work to do, but his little hands take my sleeve and he looks up at me and goes “Daddy, can you make me the costume?” and I looked at him and go “Anything for you kiddo” and he smiles and says thank you,” Mr. Jefferson explains. Thomas groans through the entire story. 

“Y’know the other thing is that he dressed up as Cinderella for five years in a row. I never knew why, but he always insisted on it,” Mr. Jefferson adds. James smiles and looks over to Thomas with an amused look. Thomas rolls his eyes. 

“Wanna know why I did that?” Thomas asks, looking up into the rearview mirror. 

“Definitely,” Mr. Jefferson smiles. James looks over at Thomas with a big smile on his face. Thomas peaks over at his and smiles back at the road. 

“Do you remember that one kid, Kyle Montgomery?” Thomas pauses, when his dad nods he starts up again, “Well, while I was trick-or-treating he came up to me and called me gay for it. I looked him dead in the eye and said “Yeah, I’m gay, and Cinderella is pretty, so go to Hell” the kids face went white and he ran away.” His dad starts laughing loudly. 

“Kyle Montgomery? The same one that started the fist fight with you in highschool?” Mr. Jefferson smiles proudly. Thomas gives a simple “Hell, yeah” and Mr. Jefferson starts laughing hysterically. 

“Wait, wait, fist fight with Kyle Montgomery?” James smiles over at Thomas. Thomas looks over and winks. “I don’t remember this, when did this happen?” James smiles, laying a hand on Thomas’s arm. He remembered how much he hated him, but doesn’t remember any fights. 

“I think this was in freshman year, we started fighting during lunch and I got pissed when he called me a fag so I punched in the face, I think I knocked a tooth out, we ended up getting suspended. I didn’t really care about that, but I cared about that huge bruise he left on my eye. Do you remember that Dad?” Thomas explains, looking up into the rearview mirror when he talks to his dad. 

“Yep, and I remember you forcing me to go with you to the store to buy you makeup to cover up the bruise,” Mr. Jefferson jokes. Thomas laughs and shakes his head. They pull down the street towards their apartment. They pull into the parking lot and everybody gets out of the car, Thomas and James getting the luggage and carrying it up the stairs as Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson were reminiscing about their first home together. They reach the apartment door and James unlocks it, pushing the door open for Thomas and walking in after everybody was in. Thomas and James drop the luggage off in the room Thomas’s parents would be staying in. 

“You have a very nice place James!” Mrs. Jefferson smiles, looking around the living and kitchenette. 

“Oh, thank you ma’am,” James says quickly. Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson giggle, like there’s some joke Thomas and James don’t understand. James knew their house was probably way bigger than James, so he also knew this was just a courtesy. 

“James do you wanna cook dinner with me?” Thomas asks, taking James’s sleeve. 

“Yeah, sure,” James nods, walking with Thomas to the kitchenette. 

“Oh, Tommy, are you trying to keep your cute boyfriend from hearing all of your embarrassing stories?” Mr. Jefferson jokes. James could see Thomas grimace at Mr. Jefferson calling James cute. “Well, we’ll just embarrass you over here,” Mr. Jefferson laughs, walking into the kitchen with the other two, followed shortly by Mrs. Jefferson. 

“So what do you want Dad? What about you Mom?” Thomas asks, turning around to look at his parents, he has an arm around James and seems really happy. 

“Ooh, mac n’ cheese,” Mr. Jefferson cheers. Thomas laughs and looks over to James. 

“If you ever wondered who got me into mac n’ cheese, there’s your answer.”

\----------

Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson had gone to sleep a while ago, but Thomas and James had decided to watch some shows before they went to sleep. Now it was getting late and they were unfolding the fold up couch. 

“So, Tommy?” James smirks as he lifts a blanket up and lets it float down around the bed. Thomas laughs and climbs under the covers, propping his head up on his palm. 

“Yep,” Thomas smiles as James climbs into the covers neck to him. “I told you they’d like you,” Thomas whispers as James settles in and looks up at him. 

“I wasn’t sure if your parents were going to be nice or not,” James admits, grabbing Thomas’s hand and running his thumb in circles around his palm. 

“I knew they’d like you but not as much as they do,” Thomas smirks. James looks up at Thomas and smiles back. 

“By the way,” James smirks, “Cinderella, for five years?” James grins as Thomas slumps his head down on the mattress and laughs dryly.  _ He looks so so so happy _ , James thinks as he watches Thomas cover his face with his hands. 

“God, I was  _ such _ an embarrassing kid,” Thomas groans, looking meekly up at James. 

“I think it’s cute!” James points out. “Would you wear a Cinderella costume now?” James teases. Thomas rolls his eyes and smirks at James. 

“If you sewed me one,” Thomas smiles. James laughs, tilting his head back a bit. 

“Okay, deal, I’ll learn how to sew and I’ll make you a Cinderella gown and you’ll have to wear it!” James smiles. 

“Deal,” Thomas nods. “Okay, lights out,” Thomas jokes, reaching across James to turn  off the light on the side table. Thomas laid back down and covers both of them up in the blanket. Thomas is warm and the arm holding James close is caring and strong. The room was dark without the light and after a few minutes James’s eyes adjusted to the light. 

“I want my child to have a whale stuffed animal, it sounds so cute,” James smiles, scrunching his shoulders up warmly. 

“We can buy it,” Thomas says, taking James’ s hand in his. James can feel his face go red.  _ We _ sounded over and over in James’s head. 

“W- _ We _ ?” James asks quietly. Thomas doesn’t respond for a few moments, like he had to decide what to say. 

“Yeah, we will,” Thomas says, barely audibly. James wasn’t sure why, but this conversation made James extremely happy.  _ He’s insinuating that we’ll have kids together, right? I’m not reading this wrong, right?  _ James asks himself. 

“I-,” James hesitates, then looks up at Thomas, “I like that idea,” James mumbles. James can see the glint in Thomas’s smile. 

“Good night, Babe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you think of Thomas's stepmom think of Kiki Pizza from Steven Universe but older


	37. Forgiveness? Can You Imagine?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back?  
> Back Again!

Chapter 37

Forgiveness, Can You Imagine

James hums a small tune as he cleans the kitchen up. Thomas’s parents were out shopping for “Unique American Merchandise” as they said, so the apartment was relatively quiet. Minus the humming and whistling coming from James and Thomas. Thomas had been extremely affectionate as late and was probably because he was “pent up” due to not being able to be intimate this past week thanks to his parents always being around. James wasn’t complaining, but it was bit embarrassing when Thomas would randomly grope his ass. Thomas came up behind James and wrapped his arms around his waist. James looks up at Thomas and raises his eyebrow.

“Thomas, what are you doing, I’m try to clean,” James protests softly, continuing to wipe the counters down. Thomas brushes his lips against James’s neck, making James tense up for a second before continuing to clean. Thomas continues to kiss along James’s neck, sucking on a few spots. 

“Thomas,” James murmurs, looking over at Thomas. 

“Come on James,” Thomas breathes against James’s neck. James shivers involuntarily. “My parents won’t be home for a long time, Maddy,” Thomas hums. James places a hand on Thomas’s head. 

“I’m serious, I’m trying to do work,” James scoffs, barely looking back. Thomas grins and without warning turns James around, pushing him against the kitchen counter. 

“Doesn’t look like you’re doing much work,” Thomas smirks holding James against the counter. James chuckles softly and rolls his eyes. 

“Okay, very funny Thomas,” James smiles. Thomas smirks and brings his face closer. 

“Oh, I’m not joking, Maddy,” Thomas purrs. James smiles softly and connects their lips. Thomas smirks against James’s lips and lifts him onto the counter. James takes his lips away to laugh as Thomas runs his fingers under James’s shirt. Thomas moves his mouth over to James’s neck and starts kissing along his collarbone. 

“Thomas,” James giggles. The laugh seemed to make Thomas move quicker. “Come on don’t you have work to do?” James smiles. Thomas pulled away from a slightly purple spot on his neck, their eyes meet.

“Oh, don’t worry about it babe, my work can wait until I’m done doing what I’ve been wanting to do to you,” Thomas raises his eyebrow with a sly grin. James could hear lust in Thomas’s low voice. James knew he needed to continue cleaning, but he  _ wanted _ to be sitting on the counter with Thomas’s arms around his waist. Thomas waited a few seconds quickly kissing James when he didn’t protest, the kiss was deep and passionate the lust slowly becoming more saturated with each movement. James was mentally kicking himself for putting off work but he knew he would regret it later if he didn’t let Thomas continue. He picked James off of the counter and carried him towards the bedroom, James had to rebalance himself in Thomas’s arms so he wouldn’t fall over. Thomas set him down once they got to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. Something felt a bit weird to be on the bed, especially since Thomas’s parents had been sleeping in it the last few days. James cringed for a second when he realized he’d have to clean another set of sheets. Thomas peels his shirt off and motions for James to join him. No matter how many times James has seen Thomas shirtless he always feels bashful. 

“C’mere babe,” Thomas insists. James shakes his head as he walks over, sitting on Thomas’s lap.

“Before we continue Mr. Jefferson, you’re going to have to promise me that you will get your work done and not enrage Angelica because of your poor work ethic,” James says, glancing back to a stack of papers on the desk against the wall. Thomas pulls James’s chin back to him. 

“You’ve got it Mr. Madison, we’ll just have to pull an all nighter,” Thomas shrugs. James scoffs and raises an eyebrow.

“We’ll? Don’t you mean you’ll?” James corrects. Thomas kisses James’s forehead. 

“Yeah, yeah, to-ma-to, to-mah-to,” Thomas smirks, running his fingertips under James’s shirt. 

\-------

Mrs. Jefferson sat at the table gushing over her new shirt and tea set. “Thomas! You will never believe how many things were there!” 

“I think I can believe it mom.” Thomas smiles, scooping another mouthful of lasagna in his mouth.

“Are you sure there were that many things? I saw five different stores that sold the same “Huntin’, Fishin’, and Prayin’” shirts,” Mr. Jefferson added. James laughs. 

“My dad has like four of those, all in different colors,” James smiles. Thomas smiles when his phone buzzes he looks down at the contact, the number wasn’t saved on his phone.  _ Maybe it’s a client? _ , Thomas decides as he pushes up from his seat. “Here excuse me.” He steps into the bedroom, the only place besides the bathroom where you could get some privacy, and answered the phone. “Hello this is Thomas Jefferson, what’d I miss?” He waited for the person on the other side to answer. It took them a second before the spoke again. 

“Tommy, it’s me.” the other person croaks. It takes him a second to recognize the voice, he hasn’t spoken to her in years. The moment he did his body involuntarily responded, his voice dried up and his stomach dropped.

“How the hell did you get this number?” He tried to keep an even tone over the phone. He didn’t want his parents or James to get freaked out. She gasped, like she was surprised he would respond like that. 

“Tommy, I am your mother! Why wouldn’t I have your number.” She was faking offense, she was playing the victim- again. Thomas knew her little ruse to a T.

“Jane, I told you never to contact me again. After what you did, after tearing our family apart then taking your anger out on me! How do you have the audacity to call yourself my mother? How dense can you be? Annette has been more of a mother to me than you ever were,” Thomas’s voice was level and a tad bit angry, but he was crying. He learned a long time ago how to keep his voice calm when he was crying. The tears felt like fire as they ran down his face, their trail seemed to burn to his bone. 

“Your father is still with that French whore? Ha, I’m surprised!” Jane responded, her voice was filled with pride. She had no reason to feel pride.

“Jane-” Thomas protested.

“Tommy! Mommy is speaking!” She snapped at him, the same way she did when he was young, that voice made his blood go from boiling to frozen. “Anyways, I called you about that  _ boy _ , and the picture on your social media. You always said you were gay, I never believed you of course. When I found you making out with boys in the basement I assumed it was just to make me mad. Regardless when you  _ finally _ get a wife I’ll consider calling you my son again,” before Thomas could get any words out she hung up, leaving Thomas to silence. Thomas’s anger was firey, alive, wild, all consuming. He was so angry and frustrated that he was starting to cry, and cry  _ hard _ . He slid down against the bed frame and stuffed his fists into his eyes, stifling a sniffle. A soft knock came from the door. Thomas’s voice didn’t respond when he told it to say something.

“Thomas?”James said softly through the door. It was the voice of someone talking to a crying baby, and it made Thomas want to scream.

“Don’t come in! I’m fine! Hold on a second!” He scrambled to his feet, wiping his face with his sleeve, and took a few deep breaths. He opened the door and looked at the concerned faces of his loved ones. Thomas looked down at James, he could feel that his eyes were sticky and probably red. James reached forward and hugs Thomas, it was like he was holding on for dear life. Thomas smiled as best as he could.

“Thomas, who called you?” His dad asked, his voice was deep and threatening. His parental instinct was activated, he needs to protect his son. His father’s face twisted up into disgust, he knew who was on the other side of the phone, Thomas didn’t need to tell him. She was the one person who knew how to break him apart, the one person whose words were like shattered glass as she spoke, each fragment cutting deeper into his skin. “ _Jane,”_ Mr. Jefferson huffs, putting a hand up to his chin. Thomas nods.  Thomas laid a  hand on James’s head, something about the whole thing was endearing.

“What did that, and pardon my choice of words,” James looks back at Thomas’s parents, they nodded for him to continue, “bitch want?” 

Thomas scoffs. “She didn’t want anything. Not money or anything like that, not that that’d be a first. All that she really said was that she would take me back when I get a wife. Which is never going to happen. She also called you a french whore, mom,” He whispered that last part, not wanting to hurt her feelings. Silence filled the room, with a groan from Mr. Jefferson.

“That cunt!” All eyes shot over to where Mrs. Jefferson had been sitting to now where she was standing fastly cursing Jane’s name to filth. James’s eyes darted up to Thomas with a small smile and his eyes brows molding into his hairline. 

“Okay Annette, sit down please.” Mr. Jefferson seemed to find it funny too. As she sat back down with a huff James’s phone was the next one to buzz. He looked at it and sighed answering it. 

“Hello?” Everyone sat waiting to know who James was talking to. “Oh, okay. We’ll be right there.” James clicked the end call button and looked to Thomas. “It’s the Boreo case. They need us in.” Thomas nodded and looked over to his family on the couch. 

“Murder case. We have to go.” 

\------------

James sat in the meeting room waiting for the last few people to arrive. He looked over his notes and the case file, he was pulled from his thought when Angelica slammed her briefcase onto the shiny table. 

“Okay, so I just got reports from the police department saying that they have some tapes that we’ll need. I also need people to go over the suspects list again since it's been updated. Okay so I want Reynolds and Mulligan to go over that list, Eliza help them out with organization. Lafayette I want you to look into the list of international trade deals Boreo was making, lots of those big companies would want to take advantage of the new meat or know something about his future plans. Now the rest of you go to the station on 12th. I’ll meet you there.” She closed up her briefcase and left. Everyone scrambled to go their predetermined place. 

“We can all ride in my car?” James offers as the four of them descend down the stairs. 

“Why? We all have cars of our own, so why bother?” Thomas says looking down at his phone. 

“Maybe because Angelica won’t want to deal with our asses when we all show up at different times, I’ll drive.” James grumbled as he lead all of them towards his car. “John want to join me upfront?” James offers, he does this as a way to encourage Thomas and Alex to work their shit out.

“I would gladly.” John races over to the passenger door and plops down in his seat snickering as Thomas squeezes into the back, pissed about more than one thing. James looks back at Thomas and Alex. Thomas had his arms crossed and was pouting, while Alex just looked over it. 

“This’ll be fun,” John remarks as James starts to drive. 

“Yeah it will.”

\----------

“Uhm, hi, I’m Officer Copperfield. Nice to meet you,” the officer meets the four by the door. The officer smiles and leads them into the station. Everyone is bustling around and talking to people. The start down the hallways. 

“Watch this,” John whispers to James. He watches as John links arms with the officer. Copperfield just smiles down at John. He looks back and winks at James. 

“So what’s the tape for, our boss didn’t exactly tell us what any of this was about,” John smiles, with his signature charismatic smile. James glances over at Alex who seemed to be pouty. 

“Oh it’s actually an interrogation of a homeless man who saw the whole thing,” Copperfield answers, his eyes trained on John. “You know, you’re awfully pretty for a lawyer, usually the cute ones aren’t lawyers,” the officer adds. James and Thomas muffle their laughs while Alex starts glaring daggers at the police officer. 

“Aw you flatter me! But you’d be surprised sir, being a lawyer is awfully fun,” John points out. 

“Ooh pretty  _ and _ smart, I like it,” Copperfield smirks as he opens the door to a little sitting area between two interrogation rooms. There was a simple table in the middle of the room with an old fashioned TV and four chairs. They all step into the room, followed by the cop. 

“Here, he doesn’t really want to talk at first so if you want we can skip a bit,” the officer explains as the four take their seats while the officer hovers near John. 

“Why thank you,” John says, his southern accent was breaking through his New York accent. 

“Jealousy doesn’t look good on you Alex,” Thomas teases, leaning over to Alex. 

“Purple doesn’t look good on you,” Alex retorts. 

“Okay, FIRSTLY, it’s  _ magenta _ , you uncultured swine. Secondly it looks fucking gorgeous on me!” Thomas argues.

“What are you? A twink?” Alex answers sarcastically. 

“I’m a Twunk! That is twink and hunk okay!”

“Hey hon,” John says, grabbing Copperfield’s sleeve, “lock them in an interrogation room.” James laughs. 

“Really? Are you sure Mr. Laurens?” the cops smiles. John nods. “Okay,” Copperfield answers as he walks towards the two guys. 

“What the fuck, no,” Alex protests as the cop starts herding him towards the interrogation room. Thomas looked confused but complied as James softly smiled at him. 

“Let’s go you two,” Copperfield says nonchalantly. Thomas and Alex were put in a room, the room closed and he could hear the lock click. Copperfield turns a sound system in the wall so they can hear what was happening in the room. Thomas sighed and sat on the table.

“They locked us in a fucking interrogation room!” Alex then proceeded to kick a chair instantly regretting it as he swore and jumped around holding his foot.

“You liked this idiot?” James asks looking over to John. Angelica opens the door and walks in, glancing dead-faced at the interrogation window.

“Why are my lawyers in the interrogation room?” Angelica asks. James, John, and the cop exchange looks. “You know what, never mind I don’t want to know.” Angelica sets her stuff on the table and sets next to James, focusing on the TV screen. The man on the screen must’ve been in his late 40s or early 50s and his hair and beard were unkempt. His clothes wear caked in sweat and dirt with holes in certain places. He kept on fidgeting and looking around.

“He keeps twitching, do you think he uses drugs? Could he be a tweaker? Because if he is that could be used against us” Angelica asks. 

“He could just be nervous,” John adds. Angelica nods. “Why would he be nervous though?” John adds. 

“Do you think the perpetrator threatened him? Or because of who he was?” James asks. Angelica looks down at her hands and thinks. 

“Does he say who did this?” Angelica asks, looking up at the cop. 

“He said he didn’t know the guy, but he gave a composite sketch, it was really good,” Copperfield answers. James saw a bit of a smile on Angelica’s face,

“Great, we’ll need to get that in here,” Angelica answers, pulling her eyes back to the screen. Copperfield walks to the door and sticks his head out, saying something to someone in the hall.

“ _ Did the man say anything when they shot Mr. Boreo? _ ” the police officer asks. 

“ _ Uh, yeah man, I think so. _ ” the homeless man nods. His body language reflected the fact that he was nervous, but he was also moving erratically.

“ _ Well what  _ did _ he say? _ ” the officer asks again. 

“ _ It was crazy man, it-he was like. Like, ‘I told you to be careful at this time of night scary  _

_ things happen around here’. The guy, the one that was shot was like ‘Come out here just to spook me?’, then the one with the gun walked towards him and laughed. ‘Spook you? I came to do much worse! You were always called’ I might get the words mixed up at this part, I saw the gun and freaked out so I don’t remember too good, _ ” the homeless man warned. 

“ _ It’s alright, tell us the gist of it _ ,” the cop nods. 

“ _ Okay, well the guy’s bein’ all menacing, and he goes “You were always called”, like, “a shooting star”? “Isn’t it poetic the shooting star gets shot down?” then the guy shot him. He laughs, and turns the guy over and stares at it for a while. Then he pockets the gun and walks away.” That’s all he- _ ”

“Shooting Star? That’s what his parents called him as a kid, how would the perp know that?” Angelica points out. 

“So the perp was related to Mr. Boero in some way,” John points out. 

“Everyone that knew him loved him though,” Angelica objects. 

“Angelica,  think about this logically. First off, the perp got up close to Mr. Boreo, close

enough to have a bit of gunshot residue on his shirt. Then he mentioned the fact that they had talked before this. Mixed with the fact that he knew the Shooting Star thing, he was definitely related the family,” John pointed out. 

“Can we get surveillance cam videos of the stores he had been in before he was shot? Maybe we can find the people he had talked to in the stores,” James suggests. 

“Good idea,” Angelica nods. 

“It’ll take a few minutes until the composite sketch comes in, so we’re going to have to just sit here and wait,” Copperfield explains as he leans against the table. James’s attention floats over to the interrogation room window. James smiles as he sees Thomas pace around the room. Alex was sitting at the metal table, swearing under his breath. 

“Okay Alex, there is something I gotta tell you.” Alex looks up from the table and glares at Thomas. “I know why they did this. James wants me to forgive you, so that’s what I’m doing. Alexander Hamilton I forgive you.” James smiled from the other side of the glass, he was glad that Thomas was finally went through with it. 

“Seriously? You are only forgiving because of James?” Alex retorts, Thomas stops dead in his tracks and frowns down at Alex.“Why can’t you grow up enough to just get over things? It’s been what four months? James forgave me after , what, three? And he forgave you, Thomas, in less than a month.” Alex points out with an angry frown.

“Maybe it’s because you convinced me to fuck you while I was in love with another person?! You know what? I’m not forgiving you! Fuck you Alex.” Thomas argued with a snappy tone. Alex rolled his eyes and groaned. 

“What is this some sort of bad law firm soap opera?” Copperfield asked, looking away from the glass. John and James laughed.

“Okay so what happened is Alex, convinced Thomas to screw him in his office, James over here,” John nudged his head over to him. “walked in and Thomas and James had been going hanging out and flirting a lot. So they were basically dating so when James walked in on the two he caught Thomas doing the equivalent of cheating. Also to thicken the plot Thomas did the exact same thing to James in high school. Only Thomas didn’t know James was the James from high school,” John explained. He seem extremely laid-back, and just so happened to leave out his involvement in the whole thing.

“Wait, wait, wait. They went to highschool together, and they dated? Then why would he want to come work here if he knew Thomas worked here? Would that be really awkward?” Copperfield asks, with a confused smile.  

“Well Thomas ended up distancing himself from his mom after high school to go live with his dad in France and changed his last name so James didn’t realize it was Thomas from high school,” John explains. Copperfield nodded in understanding. “Okay now back to the main storyline. Okay so heartbroken James goes and has a few heart to hearts with co-workers. But at this point James still loves Thomas, but he’s decided to stay away from Thomas. And obviously that worked well.” John teases, hitting James in the arm.

“Shut up,” James laughs. 

“But then out of the blue Thomas shows up at James’s house. And after this weird crying fight they decide to get back together, since they basically both love each other more than anything else.” John smiles proudly.

“Are you a stalker or something? I don’t even remember telling you half of that,” James smiles confusedly. 

John shrugs, “Office banter.”

. “Okay! Yeah I know I fucked up. Do you think I don’t know this! Everybody told me for two months about how much I fucked up!,” Alex was yelling at this point and his face was red with either anger or embarrassment. “You know, at first I didn’t feel bad, you know why? It’s because I thought I finally got you to myself. I was too love blind to think things through properly, Thomas! I thought I was the only one who could possibly love you!” Alex’s voice was loud and annoyed. He sounded like he wasn’t the one that messed up, that he was accusing someone. Then again maybe he felt that way. “But I realized really fucking quickly that you loved James. And that James loved you. Now I know that nobody could love you more than James,” Alex said with a hint of sarcasm. “The fact that you did the equivalent of cheat and you still, somehow, got back together. I would love to know your secret by the way, I’ve got an issue  _ very _ similar to you.”

“Wait what?” Thomas said quickly.

“I know that I did the worst thing I could have done, but I just wanted love. I guess I didn’t really think that whole thing through. I wanted the love that you showed James, that unconditional, ‘I will always be there for you’ type of love.” Alex went quiet. “You know, I don’t know how many people noticed, but I know I did. The first signs of  _ love _ . Your stolen glances to each other, how your eyes followed him as he walked, when you’d smile at him.” Alex points out. “But I just  _ didn’t _ get it, you showed him  _ all  _ of his love and  _ affection _ . Yet James never responded to your advances, he just ignored them. Yet  _ I _ was there for you the entire time, but no, you kept your sights trained on him.” Thomas was dead silent he was just watching Alex talk. Nobody in the room knew how to respond.  “So Thomas, can you forgive me?” Alex looked up at Thomas, even though he sounded remorseful and his body language was remorseful he still had that fiery expression. Not only James but everyone behind the glass had no words to say. 

Thomas looked at Alex, and thought for a second. “Yeah, I forgive you” Thomas nods. Alex smiles a tiny bit and gives him an awkward thumbs up. 

Alex looked at his reflection in the one way window, “Can you let us out now?” Everybody in the room shrugged. 

“Should we?” John asks. 

“Eh, I guess,” James smiles. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo kiddos! After over a two month hiatus we return! The reason for our break was the fact school was ending, some minor writers block, an my computer is broken :( anyway our updates should be back to a normal routine of about a week-two weeks. And if we don't update by then just know it on my end probably. Also we welcome all and any fanart! Just tag us using our tumblrs.   
> _ Navi (navi-senpai on tumblr)  
> (Hestia is Blubbering-fangirl)


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